Reading comprehension

Reading Short Stories
Reading Long stories
CONTENTSReadingcomprehension1

CONTENTS
Punishment4
Money3
Ingredients of success2
Language5
Readingcomprehension
Internet1
The same but different6

Mexican survive 11 month at sea2
It’s Crime1
CONTENTS

Readingcomprehension1
Internet
IsNetspeakharming…..
TheEnglishlanguage?

InternetReadingcomprehension1
IsNetspeakharming…..
TheEnglishlanguage?
My summr hols wr CWOT, we used 2 go 2 NY 2C my bro, his GF & thr 3 :-
@ kids FTF. ILNY, it’s gr8.
Can you understand this sentence ? If you can’t, don’t feel too bad: neither
could the middle school teacher in the Scotland who received this as
homework from one of her student. This is Netspeak : the language of
computerized communication found in the internet chat room, instant
message (IM), and text messages on mobile phones. Netspeak is a
collection of abbreviations (cuz =because), acronyms (BRB= Be Right Back),
and symbols (C U B4 Clss = see you before class). To newcomers (newbies
in Netspeak), it can look like completely foreign language. So , what is the
“translation "of the sentence above ? My summer holidays were a complete
waste of time. Before , we used to go to New York to see my brother , his
girlfriend, and their three screaming kids face to face. I love New York; it’s
great .

Language purists, schoolteacher, and parents everywhere say this new
form of writing, with its disregard for proper spelling, punctuation, and
grammar, threatens to destroy the English language. It’s blamed for
perceived increase in spelling and grammatical errors in student‘ writing
in school work. School abroad, teacher, and parent group call for zero
tolerance Netspeak, for fear that writing of the new generation might
became completely incomprehensible and the language itself could
become corrupted.
Everyone should just relax, say linguistics and language scholars. While
there certainly is a need to ensure students learn the standard rules of
writing , the phenomenon of Netspeak and writing on the internet.
However, Netspeak enthusiasts do acknowledge the importance of
teaching young people how to speak and write the proper English.
‘children have to be taught about their language ,’ Crystal said. They
have to learn about the importance of standard English as medium of
educated as communication. ’Cynthia McVey , psychology lecturer at

Glasgow Caledonian university, agrees. I can understand the
frustration of teacher and I think it’s important that they get across to
their pupils that text message is for fun , but that learning to write
proper English is vital for their career or future study.
Perhaps we should give teenagers a little more credit anyway. Erin, aged
12, has become fluent in Netspeak in just two months, but knows it is
not appropriate to use it in school. ‘ I wouldn’t use text language in my
homework. Texting is for fun , not for school, and I think you would
have to be a bit silly to get them mixed up’.

Netspeak word
BF Boyfriends
BFN Boy For Now
LOL laughing Out Loud
L8r Later
BTW By The Way
IMO In My Opinion
Vocabulary focusReadingcomprehension1

Grammar
Not only…but also… means in addition to. The
meaning is slightly stronger than just using and.
You should not only read English well, but also
speak fluently.
He can type not only in English, but also in
Chinese.
Help with Grammar

Exercise 1Readingcomprehension1
People who want to keep
something unchanged.
People who are honest
and good .
To change spoken or
written words into
another language.
To move from one place
to another.
To make someone or
something completely
different .
Very important ,
necessary (important for
the life of something) .

Exercise 2
1-Transparent means clear
or thin enough for you to
see things through .
True
False
2- Vivacious means to make
someone or something
completely different.
True
False
3- Translate in Netspeak means
to change spoken or written
words into another language.
True
False

Exercise 2
1- Transparent means clear
or thin enough for you to
see things through .
True
False
2- Vivacious means to make
someone or something
completely different.
True
False
3- Translate in Netspeak means
to change spoken or written
words into another language.
True
False

Judging book by their covers
The most common physical stereotyping for men is height.
The English language reflects this biased pointe of view. We
‘look up to’ people we respect, yet ‘look down on’ those
who we have a low opinion of. Research has shown that
people tend to rate tall men as more confident, masculine
and capable than short men . What is perhaps even odder
is that people's perceptions of height are often influenced
by how they generally regard the person.
Psychologists talk about the physical attractiveness stereotype to refer to
our tendency to assume that attractive people also possess other desirable
traits , such as happiness, success, kindness, and so on. Just like the
stereotyping of other races and nationalities , these views can have very
real and unfortunate outcomes.

Judging book by their covers
. In politics, for example, people who favor a certain male candidate generally
overestimate his height, and underestimate the height of the opposing candidate.
Perhaps it was no coincidence that Blair had landslide election victory.
Facial appearance is important for most of us. The following are common
stereotypes in some western cultures:
. Good-looking men are considered more intelligent than
able than less attractive men, yet for women the reverse
an be perceived as true.
. Blonde girls are perceived as being less intelligent than brunettes.
. Men with a ‘baby face ‘ (large eyes, small nose, small chin and a
round face) are perceived as helpless, dependent
and affectionate.
. People with ugly faces are more likely to be
judged guilty of crime than people with attractive.

Exercise 1
1- a situation in which two things happen by chance at the same time ____________
2- showing that you like or approve of something _____________
3- a victory by a very large majority in an election _____________
4- to think that you are better or more important than someone else ____________
5- to admire or respect someone ____________

Exercise 2
sufficient Lacking enough adequate
current beforeformer previous
temporary steadily continually non-stop
honour disgrace insult shame

Readingcomprehension1 Money
The good life?
How much money do you need to be happy ? For many , the answer to this
question is simple : ‘more ! Despite paying lips service to the notion that money
and material thing are secondary to family, love , and friends, people all around
the world still pursue money as if it is the only thing that can make them happy.
Everyone seems to be working harder and harder for more money at the
expense of spending time with their families. People are spending more than
ever before , and falling deeper and deeper
into debt each year. We want bigger homes
in better neighborhoods, the latest cars,
and bigger wide-screen TVs. It’s ‘the good
life ‘, and everyone is clamoring to get it.
But dose having and spending a lot of
money really make us happier?.
Researchers have been interested for
a long time in the link between income
and happiness.

Some conclude that once you have enough money to meet basic needs, such
as food and shelter, having more money dose little to help your happiness
and general satisfaction with life. As matter of fact, a recent study of 1,000
people in the US found that those earn $1,000 or less month were slightly
happier than those whose monthly income was above $4,000. why do more
money and more things fail to make us happier? The problem is that we
quickly get used to having more money and
New things. Initially, we may feel euphoric
when we get that bigger house or new car
but we soon get used to having it, , and then
it doesn't seem so special any more. And
when we hear that our friends or relatives
now have bigger houses and newer cars,
we become dissatisfied with what we have.

Exercise 2
Choose the
answer
Exercise 1 Complete

sacrifice debt wealthearn
Exercise 1

Exercise 1
debt

Exercise 1
sacrifice

Exercise 1
earn

Exercise 1
wealth

Readingcomprehension1 Exercise
b) People might say family, friends, and love are the most important things in
their lives, but they behaves as though money is the most important thing.
a) People work harder for more money, but this result in less time to spend with
their families.
b) People want to spend more time with their families, so they work harder.
3. What dose mean blind pursuit?
a) Trying to get something without really understanding why you want it.
b) Trying to get something , but you don’t know how to do it.
1. What dose the expression paying lip service to mean ?
a) People often say that money is more important than family, friends and
love.
2. Which the best paraphrase of line 5-7?

Readingcomprehension1 Punishment
An unpunished crime
The first time I got caught stealing was when I was about eight years old. My
mother, older brother, and I went shopping at a department store. While my
mother and brother were looking at clothes, I went alone to the music
department. I noticed a Michael Jackson cassette and, without really thinking,
put it in my pocket. Than I went back to my mother and brother, and continued
shopping.
Later, while we were driving home in the car, I decided
to look at my new cassette. My brother saw it and
asked me where I had bought it. I was unable to
answer, and my brother immediately told my
mother that I had stolen the cassette. As soon
as my mother found out what I had done, she turned the car round and we
went back to the department store. She dragged me into the shop by my ear,
and made me return the cassette and apologize. It was extremely
embarrassing. It didn’t end there.

PunishmentReadingcomprehension1
My mother told my father and he shouted at me for what seemed like
forever. As a punishment, I couldn’t see my friends for the rest of the
summer holiday ( two whole weeks!). The experience made me very angry,
but I did learn two things that day: one , when you do something wrong, be
very careful not to get caught, and two, never trust your brother.
One day Andy and I were shoplifting in a supermarket, suddenly, the police
arrived and took me home in a police car. I was terrified. The police officer
talked with my mother and then left. I expected my mother to be furious,
and was waiting for sever punishment that was sure to come. However, to
my surprise, she just broke down and cried.
For a long minutes, my mother just wept.
I pleaded with her to stop crying and
promised I would never steal again, she
didn’t even give me a lecture about
stealing, or tell my father. I felt terrible
to see her so upset.

I learnt something else from that experience, as well.
When I told Andy that I wouldn’t shoplift again, he was
fine about it and we continued to be friends as before. I
realized then that a true friend never pressure you to do
something bad, and accepts you for who you are.
After that day, I refused to steal again and I never have since.
Even today, when I think about stealing, I get that same sick
feeling in my stomach and heart that I had day my mother in
front of me. why that ‘non-punishment’ was so much more
effective than the ‘real’ punishment I received when I was
eight years old, I am not sure, but it makes me think about
how I will punish and discipline my daughter when she does
something bad.

Physical
punishment
‘Time out’
punishment
‘Take away’
of privilege
12%
59%
29%
Type of discipline and
punishment
give physical punishment — hit or spank the child
give “time out” punishment — make the child
stand in a corner or sit quietly for up to ten
minutes
take away privileges — not allow the child to play
with something or do something they like to do
give extra chores — give small jobs like cleaning
and washing dishes
ground the children — not allow the child to meet
their friends and make the child come home
directly after school
give a lecture and warning — not give any
punishment, just tell the
child why the action was wrong and warn them
not to do it again

NotesReadingcomprehension1
Suffix
-ance (-ence)
-ion, tion, ation
-ism
-ness
-ship
-ology
Example
Hesitance, confidence
Revision, examination
Criticism, Buddhism
Sadness, softness
Friendship, partnership
Anthology, sociology

B- He didn’t want to tell the truth.
A- He didn’t know the answer.
B- to fall down .
A- To lose control of one’s emotions
A- his embarrassed at the department store
B-his general punishment.

B- You don’t have to change yourself or do something
special for a friend to like you.
A- A good friend will like you if you are the right kind of
person.
B- kill someone.
A- Give ‘time out ‘ punishment.
A- lecture
B-punishment and discipline

Readingcomprehension1 Language
Read text

The power of double-speak
Euphemisms have been used since ancient times to avoid giving offense, but
now politicians are using them to hide the realities of war. Deferred success,
person who is hearing-impaired – are these phrases in any current dictionary?
Where did they originate? Does anyone actually use them? While our media
are frequently charged with dumbing down and our teenagers with being
inarticulate, and perhaps both accusations have merit,
some of our leaders are busy creating a
whole new vocabulary.
Listen to political speeches these days
and you’ll find yourself having to
spontaneously translate newly-combined
words from your own language. It could be
the Minister for Education finding reasons
why our children are now leaving school
LanguageReadingcomprehension1

without having mastered simple arithmetic (they’re motivationally challenged),
or someone from the Department of Transportation explaining why the
differently abled are still denied access to numerous subway lines. All politicians
seem to be semi-fluent in double-speak. The ancient Greeks used euphemisms
for certain religious words so they did not offend the gods. Native English
speakers in previous centuries used euphemisms mainly to avoid giving offence
to each other. Better to say ‘I have to visit the rest room’ than directly
announcing your intention to use the toilet. ‘He passed away yesterday’ is a bit
more sensitive than ‘Tom has just died’. As we know, language evolves with time
and trends. So now we have the rather modern
‘She’s rather full figured’, which is certainly
kinder than ‘She’s fat’! .Even more recently,
‘blended family’ has been used to replace the
much longer ‘Divorcees Jack and Mary have
got married and their kids from previous
relationships are now one big family’.

But in the 21st century, the use of euphemism or double-speak is also being
exploited for far more sinister purposes. If you don’t believe this, listen hard to
what our military leaders are really telling us and read between the lines of the
next ‘factual’ report on any country afflicted by war.
Even if you deplore their policies, you have to agree that our military leaders
are clever. Once you dehumanize the enemy, it’s far easier to drop your bombs
and mask the horror of war. Your own civilians reading the paper or listening to
their leaders on the evening news are less likely to protest or comprehend the
claim that ‘An attack on soft targets is the only way to destroy the terrorists
hiding among them’ than the admission that ‘We also had to kill innocent men,
women, and children who lived in the town.’ We are now so used to double-
speak that we are in danger of becoming truly desensitized. We hear about
military campaigns and the statistics of death,
but the actual gruesome details are quite remote.
Our politicians and our generals know that if we
actually saw what is left after a bomb has dropped
and witnessed the grief of the survivors, we might
demand an end to the fighting.

Readingcomprehension1 Exercise 1
1 deferred success 2 hearing impaired 3 motivationally challenged
4 soft target 5 friendly fire
meaning
a shots fired at you accidentally by soldiers from your own army
b the bombing of an area where civilians live
c to be deaf
d to under-perform (at school)
e a failure

meaning
c to be deaf
e a failure
Friendly
fire

meaning
c to be deaf
e a failure
Soft target

meaning
c to be deaf
e a failure
Hearing impaired

meaning
c to be deaf
e a failure
Motivationally challenged

Readingcomprehension1 Exerise1
meaning
c to be deaf
e a failure Deferred success

1 Euphemism is being exploited for far more sinister purposes.
Euphemism is being (a)__________ (b)__________ for much more
(c)__________ (d)__________.
2 The greatest hypocrisy ... is the use of language to … justify the
actions of your army and … to denounce exactly the same actions
when they are carried out by the opposing army.
Your (a)__________ are not (b)__________ if you use language to
(c)__________ why the actions of your army are (d)__________ and
to(e)__________ the same actions of the enemy army.
wrongly reasonsmoral beliefs
genuine evil
good
used explain criticize

The same but differentReadingcomprehension1
We wouldn't be in the kitchen baking homemade bread, we'd be out there
in the workplace showing we were real human beings -just as valuable as
any man. In Susan Faludi's 1993 book, Backlash, she predicted that women's
liberation would get a bad name. Then in 2005, DarIa Shine's book, Happy
Housewives ,old American women that they should be proud to become
wives and mothers. "Why wasn't being a mom offered to me as a career?"
Shine asks, and she's not alone.
When my friends and I were little girls, none of
us thought we'd grow up to be housewives.
My mother was determined that any daughter
of hers would have a career -there would be
no stay-at-home mothers among her children.

Although I haven't given up work completely, I now have a part-time job
allowing me more time for my kids and my husband. They now get freshly-
prepared food every day, instead of badly-cooked meals that nearly killed
them with food poisoning. These days there are many women like me who
are quietly turning away from work and giving up high-powered jobs in law,
medicine, banking and the media. As one friend pointed out, when a married
couple are both earning good salaries ,a great deal of their hard-earned
money goes on income tax. So it seems that a lot of people are 'downsizing'
and looking for quality of life. Yes, you may have to make cutbacks, but why
have it all when you only want a bit? I think the problem is that women never
really thought about what 'work' meant and we never considered all the
drawbacks. It's no fun being a woman holding down a job and trying to run a
home. Every job in the home is unbelievably time-consuming -if you do it
properly, that is.

But when I had a full-time job I certainly didn't -the fridge was empty, the
house was unloved and the babysitter saw the kids more than I did. At 11 p.m.
I'd still be putting their clothes in the washing machine or making them
sandwiches because they didn't like the school lunches. I was always
exhausted, but I never seemed to achieve anything. And there was a complete
breakdown .,n communication between me and my husband. So tell me Mum,
where was the liberation in that?

3 -Desperate to be a housewife
1 -Women need to work
2 -Families can't live on one salary

1 The writer of the article always expected to become a housewife.
2 She was greatly influenced by her mother.
3 Daria Shine thinks that being a housewife and mother is as valuable as any
other job.
4 The writer has always had a part-time job.
5 The writer says a lot of women are giving up work.
6 The writer has always managed to run her home well.

In 2005 two men tried to rob a gas station in Poulsbo, Washington.
They told the salesgirl to put all the money from the cash register
into a bag, but they didn't realise that there were only eight
dollars in it. They drove away with the money, but soon got lost
because they weren't from that town and they didn't have a map.
They finally drove into a gas station to get directions.
Unfortunately for them they'd driven back into the same gas
station. The salesgirl had called the police, who were interviewing
her when the robbers returned.
It’s CrimeReadingcomprehension1

1 How much money did the robbers steal?
Eighty dollars Eight dollarsTen dollars
2 Why did they gel lost?
They were probably
arrested.
They weren’t from town and
they didn’t have a map
3 Where did they end up?
At the gas station that
they had robbed.
At the supermarket
that they had robbed.

Read text
Mexicans survive 11 months at sea

Readingcomprehension1 Mexicans survive 11 months at sea
Three Mexican fishermen have been rescued by Taiwanese sailors after
spending 11 months adrift on the Pacific Ocean. Lucio Rendon, Salvador
Ordonez and Jesus Vidana set sail from Mexico on October 9th, but strong
ocean currents began to drive their 27 foot fibber glass boat westward after
its engine failed. They had no way of calling for help as they had no radio
aboard, and their compass could only tell them which direction the tide was
taking them in. They claim to have survived on fish and the occasional sea bird.
With no matches and no means of cooking, everything they caught had to be
eaten raw. Although Rendon says they sometimes went without food for
fifteen days, they were never in danger of dehydration since it rained every
day. At night they huddled together to keep warm and tried in vain to signal
distant boats with their one flashlight.
Vidana, however, says they never lost
hope as they prayed to God that they
would be rescued.

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Comprehension

1. Click on the three objects below that are
mentioned in the report.

Reading comprehension

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