something to read 1

8/12/2019 Something to Read 1

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/something-to-read-1 1/67



Published by the P re ss Syndicate of th e University of Cambridge

Th e Pitt Building Trumpington Str eet Cambridge CB2 1RP

40 West 20th Stre et New York Y 10011 USA

10 Stamford Road Oakleigh M elbourne 3166 Australia

ambridge U niversity Pr ess 1988

F i s t published 1988

Reprinted 1990

Printed n Great Britain

by Scotprint Ltd Musselburgh Scotland

ISBN 0 521 34817

opyright

The law allows a reader to make a single copy of part of a book

for purposes of private study. It does not allow the copying of

ent ire books or th e making of multiple copies of ex tracts. Written

permission for any such copying must always be obtained from thepublisher in advance.



ntroduction

o the reader

Ask a teacher or othfirEnglish speaker) to help you with this introduction.

Welcome to Something toRead 1 , a collection of 3 short texts on a variety of subjec tsfor Beginner and Elem entary students of Enghsh. As you'll see from the Contents page,there are th ree groups of texts; the first group is easier than the second, and the secondis easier than the third. Within each group the early texts are usually simpler than thelater ones. It's not necessary, however, to s tart at the beginning and read through thewhole book in order. We've provided you with a choice of topics so that you can lookfor things that inte res t you personally.

We believe that it 's useful for you to begin reading authentic English as early as pos-sible. Many texts therefore include extracts from books, magazines etc. Where suchauthentic material has been shortened or reasons of difficulty, space or organisation

you'll see [. . .].When you're reading, we suggest that you concentrate on general meaning firs t

rather than trying to understand every word. In other words, t ynot to use a dictionaryall the time. Where w e feel that a dictionary would be particularly helpful, we tell you.After the &st few texts, there are tasks, marked . hese are there to give you helpwith meaning and opportunities to assess your reading, if you want them. T hese tasksare not te st s of memory, so do look at the text while you're daing them. The answersto the tasks are on pages 59 60.

We hope you enjoy the book

o the teacherSomething to Read 1 is intended to provide more extensive reading practice than is gen-erally possible in a course book With this book the choice of what, when and how muchto read is, we feel, best left to the students. The teacher's role is simplyto make thebook available, althoughyou might like to provide time in class for students to talk aboutwhat they've read. To start your students off, we suggest that you explain the aboveintroduction to them, or provide a translation, and then encourage them to choose a textand start reading.

Whatever course book your students are using, it may be a helpful indication of levelto know that students using Level of the CambmdgeEnglish Course should be able tobegin reading from the first group of texts by the time they reach Unit 2and from thesecond and third groups at about Units 16 and 4 respectively.



verydayRead this with a dictionary ook up only th e underlined words.

n the worldMore than 172,000 babies are born.204,820 tonnes of fish are caught.75,972 cars, 240,821 TV se ts and 419,178 radios a re m ade.1,780 ,465 people tra vel by plane.More than 2 ciga rettes ar e made for every man, woman and child in the world.75 Americans, 55 Japanese and 5 Swed es kill themselves, and 34 Thais , 30 Brazilians

and 1 .5 Canadians are murdered.115,000 tourists arrive in Spain, 51,000 in Italy and 32,000 in Britain.Th e Sultan of Brunei he richest man in the world ge ts 282,191.11,673,342 Russians go to the cinema.



In Britain

2 000 babies are born 1 100 couplesget married and 1 800 people die.

Th ere are 68 500 000 phone calls.32 000 000 letter s a re posted.126 people go to prison.5 046 ueoole take their driving test.

m p f sg t maiFi isd

I

nd 2 454 of them pass.1 991 780people travel on th L

rrrxrx i,

Underground railway. u pr t s o~

nd

The k s n your head grow about 0.33m. nd between 30 and 100 of them fall out.ou link 17 000 times.

While you sleep you dream for about hours and lose 340g. in weight.



Where we liveCities and towns

40% of the people in the world live in cities and towns. In ritain90.83 of people livein cities and towns; in Burundi it's 2.29 .

\

Rich countries poor countries

incities andtowns

nno

Map showshow much moneypeople earn inone year in thedifferent coun-t i e s of theworld. For exam-ple, in the UnitedStates peopleearn an averageof 6,400 in oneyear.



TABLE

The Lot of the Many a Lot for the ew

Averageincomeper head 1981Sharesofworld populi I 1981 Sharesofworld income 1981

US

30

809

1600

32006400

Sources LloydsBank EconomicReview on Tatwanata not available

1983;WorldBankAtlas 1980 1983 Extremes: Bhutan Laos 80 Qatar 27,720

Table shows that the poor countries (wherepeople TI an average of 400)have 49%of thepopulation of the world but 5 of the money. The

rich countries (where people earn an average of6,400) have 67 of the money but 15 of the

population.

Some interesting numbers

Oneultiplying I s gives numbers that are the same when read from the right or the left.

Here it stops, but look also at :

and at :



42857 he number in circle

Strange things happen when you multiply this number.First set out the digits in a circle ('digits' are the tennumbers 0, 1 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9).

Now multiply 142857 by the ntunbers from 1 o 6:

Each time the answer has th e sam e digits, beginning at a different place in the circle.Now multiply 142857 by 7 and things suddenly change:

142857 7 = 999999

Multiply 142857 by a really big number and see what happens:

142857;., :..

s- x 32284662474

4612090027048218

Divide th answer into groups of 6 digits, eginning at the right:

4612 090027 048218

Add these numbers:

Multiply 1089 by the numbers l to

and look at the answers up and down, from the left, from the right.

adapted from iguring he Joy o umbers by Shakuntala Devil



year in ngland

A LOT of people who study English want to cometo Britain perhaps to study English, perhaps totravel, but certainly to try using the language.Anita Tirandcame to England inJuly 1986 o spenda year working and learning English.

Anita is 25 and comes from a town near Mar-seilles in France. She studied Spanish and Frenchat university, but not English.

'I studied English at school for seven years,but I didn't like it very much. Thepronunciation was difticult, and the lessonswere boring we learnt about the royalamily, the bad food, the bad weather.

I didn't think England was a very excitingplace.

Her ideas didn't change when she came to Eng-land about eight years ago.

'I was an au pair in London for two months.But I couldn't speak much English, and myboyfriend came from France to see me, sowe spoke French all the time. It rained a lotand we just stayed at home. I didn't like itvery much.

Now I know it's a very bad thing to do, tocome to a country and just staywit peoplefrom your own country. You don't seeanything and you don't try to speak.'

In 1985 Anita went to the Canary Islands for ayear to teach French. When she was there shedid some work as a translator, but she soonrealised that to work as an nterpreter or trans-

lator she needed English.

She wrote to a good friend jn Bristol anEnglish girl she had met at ttv er si ty in France -who said, 'Come toEngland.

'When I came here I couldn't s p e l EnglishDo you like? ,hings like that, but no

more. I stayed at my friend's place ndshehelped me a lot.

I t was very tiringat the beginning. Everynight when I went to bed I was so tired,because all day I tried to understand and

tried to sp eak And I couldn't read the



newspaper, so I didn't h o w what washappening in the world. I felt I was in aballoon my world, my house, and that's all.'

After a few weeks she started working in restaur-ants, washing dishes and preparing food. Becauseshe couldn't speak much English, she sometimeshad problems.

'I remember once I worked for two days in

an Italian restaurant, and after 12hoursworking without a break they gave me 12.Iwas so angry, but I couldn't say anythmg,because I didn't know what to say '

At first Anita studied English at home for two orthree hours a day, but then she began going toEnglish classes. She alsobegan giving French andSpanish lessons at home, and she worked as awaitress in a restaurant two days a week.

After this year Anita wouldyear course interpretingParis, but she'll need very

French and Spanish. So perhaps she'll spendanother year in England.

Iwould like to have another year here. Allthis year I was trying to understand; withanother year I could learn to speak well. I'dlike to go to the north and to Scotland, tosee a different part of Britain, though likeBristol very much.

I like the way people live here lot ofyoung people sharinghouses, and a friendlyatmosphere. n France you live alone, orperhaps with one friend, or in a couple. Youdon't share so muck

And the weather isn't bad every day.They told us, "It rains every day inEngland," but it's not true.

I came thinking, "It's not going to be fun,I'm going to be lonely," but it wasn't trueeither. I know I was lucky, but people arereally more open and friendlythan I thought.

ooth task

A.L.~*S stl.nfantry cor

Norway.

Tooth taskThe M e 1 Tower has beenimmortalised in a new form-a model built by a Span-iard using 884 cows' teethand six of his own. Mr JuanMerchant, aged58 stid rom

hishome in Sabadell, north-easternSpain,that he collec-ted 3,000teeth from a Mend

who works in an abbatoir.-Reuter.



hree fish

Theri are about 100differentkinds of puf~erfis~f(brTetraodontidm) living n ll the warm seas of theworld. When they are afraid they fillup with air or

water ike a football.phe fish in the picture is aFlorida Pufferfish Shaerozdk?sne helus); it lives inthe Gulf of Mexico and is &i t25-27 cm. long.The Black Deep-sea Angler (Melanocoetus cirrifer)l i w 1400-1800 metres do- the Atlantic0ceanL7Ithas a very big mouthwith long teeth and it has alight on its head. This light helps it catch its food,The Black Deep-Sea G l e r isabout 10 cm. long.

Whale Shark, hincodon typus ,540 in. rS3.7

metres] [. ]This is the largest fish in the world.It occurs in the warm of all three oceans,

but is very rare, [. ] In 1953, off the coast of

Texas, n egg 'was found which was 11 in.r27.5 cm.] long, 5 in. r12.5 cm.] broad, and 3in. [8.75 cm.] thick; it contained a young whale

shark that was 13 in. [32.5 cm.] long. The eggs

are larger than those of any other li;ing animal.

from Living Fishes of the World by Hans Hvass)

*Where do these fish live? Look back at the information and put the numbers from the map in the circles.

a) Whale shark@ b) Black Deep-Sea Angler ) Florida Pufferfish l Pufferfish



What can you do with an oldcan?In the house or the office

Make apaperweight or a doorstop. ill the canwith stones or coins. Use it to hold papers onyour desk. Make two and use them to h~ ldhe

door open.

Use it as a candle holder when there s no

electricity.

You can also use it as an ashtray.

Make a tissu holder. Cut the top off, iill thecan with a roll of tissues. ull them out one ata time from the middle.

Make an umbrella stand or a spaghetti holderCut the tops off three tins and the bottom s offtwo of them. Glue them one on top of the other,put something heavy like a large stone -in thebottom. Put your umbrella or spaghetti in it.

Something for the children or for you)Make a telephone. You need two cans, a hammer and a n il (to make holes) and a longpiece of strong string.



Make musical instmments using

f you ve got lots of old cans, make a snake.

With two strong cans and lots of string you can make stilts to walk on.

There are ots of other things you can do too1 You can make house for your pet mouse

2 You can make a bell for your front door

3 You can hold it to your ear and listen to the sea

4 You c n make a hat to wear to parties

5 or you can just put your old can in the dustbin

r Put the numbers in the circles to match the words and pictures



olouredlegsTHIS IS the market in Tordera,a small town in Spain. I wentthere with a group of friends oneSaturday morning. The marketwas busy, I remember, andnoisy there were babies crying,dogs barking music playing, andpeople calling to their friends.There were lots of wonderfulsmells too -fried onions, coffee,

cheese and fresh bread.All kinds of things were for

sale ood and furniture, dogsand dresses, cassettes andclocks. And there were dozensof people elling, buying, talk-ing eating, trying on clothes,d just walking Gound and

looking.We were ll tired after a late coloured legs, blue, red and

night, so we through the pink legs, yellow, orange and

market slowly, looking at this white. Then we looked again.and that. We turned a comer I didn't buy anything in theand suddenly the sky was full of

market, but I did get somethinI liked his photo of a line of

coloured tights, dancing in thesun in front of the old church.

Wateran egg is about 74 water, a piece of

steak about 73 , nd w exrnelon abo ut92 .

(from Encyclopedia International



Your body is about two-thirds water. Achicken is about three-fourths water,and a pineapple is about four-fifthswater.

from The World Book Encyclopedia

r Look back at the information nd put the

numbersin

the circles.

Thehighestwaterfall n the world, at 979metres,is Angel Falls, in Venezuela.

Thewaterfallwith thebiggestvolume of water793,000 m3in oneminute-is GuairaFalls on

the Par River between Argentina and Brad.

There is more water than anything else in

the world, but, of course, fresh water ismore useful to people than sea water.

e live in a world of water. But almostall of it about 97 per cent s in theoceans. his water is too salty to be usedfor drinking, farming, and manufactur-ing. Only about per cent of the world'swater isfresh (unsalty). Most of this wateris not easily available to people becauseit is lockedpinglaciers a6d icecaps.

from The World Book Erzcyclopedia



You probably know that lmatter can be golid, liqui Qrgas So water or H rather m e ice liqui or

ste mBut did

you knowthat

water i sthe

nlysubst ncethat s faund mt r lly in these three states?

oemr Read this poem with a dictionary.The poet, Dannie Abse, is a Welsh Jew.

Lesson in reality

They held u a stone.I said, Stone.

Smiling they said, Stone.

They showed me a tree.

said, Tree.Smiling they said, Tree.

They shed a man s blood.

I said, Blood.Smiling they said, Paint.

They shed a man s blood.I said, Blood.

Smiling they said, Paint.



A camel or a car

CARS ARE expensive, and for many peopletheyye the most expensive thing they buy afterbuying a house or a flat. But there are cheaperways of travelling? so w e decided to compare afamily car the Ford Fiesta Popular with a

camel, to see what you get for your money.

Cost

A camel costs M50 to £600. In 1987 a new FordFiesta Popular cost 614,523. You can make moneyon your camel if you sell it again, but not on yourcar.

Fuel

Th e Ford F iesta Popular, travelling at a spee d of90 kp.h., uses 5.4 litres of petrol n 100 km. Itcarries just over 40 litres of petrol. The car then,can travel 740 km. in eight hours before it needsmore petrol.

Camels cost nothing to feed. They can eatthings that other animals can t, like dry sticks.They do need water, but they can go without it

for a long time wo weeks or more. When theyfind it, they c n drink 114 litres in ten minutes.However, a camel can only travel 160 km. a day

nd it must have wa ter every day to do this. Butthe camel does have one big advantage: it cansmell water from a distance of 1.5km. No car cantell you where the neare st petrol station is.

Speed

Th e car s fastest speed is 135 k.p.h. For thecamel, it s 14 16 k.p.h.

Where can it go

Cars need roads and they don t like very hot orvery cold weather. Camels, however, c n goalmost anywhere and they can live and work in

very hot places and in very cold places.

What else do you get

Cars have all sort s of extra things for the driver,e.g. radios, heating, and cigarette lighters. Thereare also six or seven different sorts of FordFiesta, but only two sorts of camel.

The extra things on camels are for the camel,not the driver. Camels have wide feet, so theycan walk easily on sand or snow. They have



What can you do with itwhen it dies

With a car not much. Sometimes you c n get abit of money by selling parts of it; sometimes,however, you have to pay somebody to take itaway. A dead camel is much more useful; you c n

make shoes and bags from the skin.

How can you get a newone

You can t make new Ford Fiesta yourself youhave to buy one. However Ford c n make youone n 22 hours.

You can make a new camel if you have a maleand a female camel, but you ll have to wait abouta year before the camel is born, and another 1012 years before it is adult.

Personality

Cars do not love or hate their drivers, thoughsome people don t believe this. Camels some-times begin to hate their riders violently. Whenthis happens, the rider has to give his clothesto another person and go away. The other per-

son gives the clothes to the camel, which kicksand stamps on them After this, the camel isdouble rows of eyelashes to keep sand out of their happy eeyes, and can close their nostrils to keep sand outof their noses.

You do get things from camels too milk hairfor making cloth, and dung. You c n also eat yourcamel, of course but then you can t ride it.

How long does t last

Camels live for 3 to 50 years. The Ford FiestaPopular was first made in 1980, so it s cliffcult to



Which one is best

* Put the letters in the spaces below.

A you want to travel fast.B you live in a hot sandy place with few petrol stations.C you want somethmg you can have for a long time.D you live in a city with lots of petrol sta tions and not many ry sticks.

E you like buying new things often.F you like travelling slowly and seeing the countryside.

camel i f

you have 2600 or lessFord Fiesta Popular i f

you have 4>523 or more

Miss Angell secretary

IRENE ANGELL left school at 15, went to a secretaria l col-lege for six months to learn typing and shorthand, and thenworked in London as a secretary. Being ;a secretary is notunusual for a young woman today, but Miss Angel was bornin 1896 and went out to work at a time when m ost womenworked n the home.

In an nterview in The Observer in January 1987, M issAngell talked about her life and work in London A secretary slife today is, of course, very different from the time MissAngell remem bers. Nowadays secreta ries wear more o r lesswhat they like.

They dress so beautifully she

said. In her early days, officeuniform was a long navy-blueskirt and a white blouse. If youwere daring, you might wear apink blouse, she recalled.

To keep their sleeves clean,secretaries ware paper cuffs,which they changed each dayand on which they would oftenjot shorthand notes. ats werede rigpeur elt in winter andstraw in summer butlipstick was forbidden.



secretary in London today w orks from about 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday, withbreaks for tea o r coffee and an hour for lunch. Miss A ngell worked from 9 a.m. to6 p.m. on weekdays and from 9 a.m..till p.m. on Saturdays. T he re we re no breaksand she wasn t paid in her lunchtime.

In one office where sheworked, about 50 secretaries

sat in a large room watchedover by a supervisor. Thesupervisor would call you andtell you your boss had rung,Miss Angell recalled. Whenyou went out and when youreturned, you entered thetimes on a large board hangingon the wall and added in brac-kets the number of letters youhad taken.

She was very busy and she didn t get much money either: in her first job Miss Angellearned 10 shillings a week.

The return tram fare fromWandsworth to SouthwarkBridge was threepence a dayand with lunch teak andkidney pie, potatoes and a cupof tea -at sixpence, the young

secretary was left with six shil-lings a week.

(from The Observer



She gave her mother five shillings and kept one shilling for herself.Although the work was hard, she enjoyed it and worked in lots of different offices.

She got new jobs easily because her shorthand was very fast 120 words a minuteand she loved it. The end of f i s AngelYs working lif was as unusual as the beginningshe w as a secretary till she was 8 years old. Perhaps it s not surprising that she saysshe still thinks in shorthand sometimes.

Then:

12 pence = 1 shilling20 shillings = £1OO

Now

p 1 old shillingloop = £1 00



Fresh from the kitchenUNTIL RECLYTLY, the only time I ever ate bean sprouts was in Chineserestaurants

r, occasionally, when Ibought some froma supermarket. Then I read somethingina newspaper about how to grow them, and I decided to t y it.

I t was actually very easy. The only diflicult thing, for me, was remembering to rinsethem regularly. You don't have to do this often ut I stillforgot sometimes (and thenremembered in bed ). In fact you can grow them in the kitchen at any time of year. Youjust need water, a jar and a little bit of time. You can eat them as soon as they ve grown;you don't need to peel them or chop them as.you do other vegetables. You can alsogrow lots of differentbean sprouts; try any dried bean, pea or seed you n o m d y usein cooking but remember they must not be broken or too old.

ean sprouts

If you like £reshpeas and salads you'll like bean sprouts. All bean sprouts have someprotein. Like oranges and lemons, they have lots of Vihnin C, and they have otherimportant vitamins and minerals too.

They're a good food for people who want to lose weight:

Calories11 g

Chicken 192Cheese 420Potato (boiled) 80Chick pe sprouts 28Lentil sprouts 8

Mung bean sprouts 2

Soya bean sprouts 48



owto grow be n sprouts



The best lengths for bean spro uts are:

cm time taken days)Chick peas 2 4 - 6Lentils 0 . 2 5 - 2 3 - 5Mung beans 1.2 5- 4 4 - 6Soya beans 1 . 2 5 - 4 3 - 6

You can eat your bean sprouts n lots of different ways, for example:

raw - n salads and sandw iches, mixed with mayonnaise to pu t n tomatoes or eggs, incold soups and drinks.

cooked n soups, omelettes, n sauces for pasta

erhaps you d like to try thls recipe . (Read it with the help of a dictionary.)

Celery and Tomatoeslarge on io n, sliced

stalks celery, sliced

tablespoon cooking o il

X 225 g/8 oz c an tomatoes and juice

225 g/8 x bean sprouts soya , black eye,short mun g bean, ad zu ki or lenti ls)

A, teaspoon marjoram

Pi nch rosemary

Sa lt and fresh ly ground black pepper

G e n t l y f r y t h e o n i o n a n d c e l e r y i n t h e c o o k i n g o il

f o r 5 m i n u t e s t o s o ft en . A d d a l l t h e r e m a i n i n g. I m

i n g re d ie n ts a n d b r in g t o t h e b oil. s i m m e r , u n c o v e r e d

f o r m i n u t e s .4-

(from Spyouting Beans and Seeds by Judy Ridgway)

If you can t get m arjoram or rosemary, use any herbs that you normally use withtomatoes.



Other things tha t people mentioned were:

noisy lifts

dripping taps in bathrooms

people who slam doors

noisy office machines

motorbikes

equipment that makes electronic noises for nogood reason

the sound of the dentist s rill

and.

People who go on and on about the things theydon t like.



France, rose-growers Franqois Meilland and his Th ey also thought about a nam e for 3-35-40

fathe r Antoine began looking at 800 of their young and decided to call it Mrne A. Meilland , the name

ros e plants. Th ey chose fifty, and gave each a of Antoine s wife and Fransois mo ther, who had

number. In 1939, when the new ros es we re died in 1933. After waiting a long time th ey hadgrowing well, Franqois and his father invited news of their rose. In Germany it was called

some rose-growers to visit them. Everybody Gloria Dei , in Italy Gioia , and in both place s itliked their roses very much especially the one was growing well. But they heard nothing from

with th e number 3-35-40. Perh aps this ro se America. Then, one day in 1945, Fransois had a

would mak e t he Meillands rich. let ter from Robert Pyle. 3-35-40 was growingIn Sep tem ber, ho wever, Hitler invaded Poland ver y well in many different pa rts of America, and

and the Second World War had begun. People the rose-growers loved it. And, thanks to Mrneeded food now, not roses, and the Meillands Pyle, their rose had made the Meillands rich. It

had to pull up and bum 200 000 rose bushes to also had a new name. Th e American Rose Society

grow vegetables. But first they s en t a small par- had named the ros e Peace on 29 April 1945 he

cel of 3-35-40 to a rose-g row er in Italy and day before Hitler died.another to a rose-grower in Germany. Then, inNovember, they had a phone call from someone . ine years after the Americans gave it its

who loved roses - he American Consul in Lyons. lovely name, it was estimated th at thir ty millionPeace rose-bushes were flowering all over th e

I m ab ou t to leave. If you like I can take a small world; and Francis [Fransois] wro te in his diary:

parcel for a friend. Maximum weight: one How rewarding it is for an ordinary workingpound. gardener t o know his rose is grow ing in cottage-

They understood. Within two hours a small gardens, in the grounds of mansions, around

parcel of budded 3-35-40 was rushed to the churches, and mosques and hospitals, and in

American Consulate, a one-pound parcel care- public parks; and t o think th at so many people

fully addressed to their American rose-grower are now seeing the rose he alone once saw in his

friend, Mr. Rob ert Pyle. And up and aw ay flew mind as he strove to create it.

th at small parcel on th e last, the very last Clipper How strange to think, too, that all these

to fly from unhappy France to Am erica. millions of rose-bushes sprang from one tinyseed

For nearly six years the Meilland family workedhard growing vegetables nd a few roses. They (from or Love o Rose by Antonia Ridge)

often thought about their parcels: had theyarrived in Germany, in Italy? Were t he ro sesgrowing? Did that last plane get to Americasafely?



romthe clouds

When shall we three meet againin thunder, lightning or in rain?

from Macbeth by William Shakespeare)

hunder and lightning

Lightning can travel half as fas t as light. T he ir it travels through can get as hot as30,000 C (five times hott er than the surface of th e sun); when this hot ir expands, wehear thunder.

You can tell how far away lightning is if you count th e secon ds betw een the lightning

and the thunder. Sound travels about a kilometre in three seconds. So if there s thundersix seconds after lightning, the lightning is two kilometres away.

We say that Lightning never strikes twice in the sam e place but it isn t true ; placesand people can be hit by lightning more than once

The only man in the world to have

survived a lightning strike seven

times is Park Ranger Roy C Sulli-

van (USA). He lost a big toe nail

in 1942, lost his eyebrows in July1969 and was burnt on the left

shoulder in July 1970. His hair was

set on fire in April 1972 and

August 1973. In June 1976 his

ankle was injured and on 26 June

1977 he suffered chest and

stomach burns.

from The Guinness Book of Weather Factsand Feats by Ingrid Holford)



Raining cats and ogs and SO4In English we sometimes say,' 'It's raining cats and dogs' when it's raining very hard.Ca ts and dogs don't usually fall ont of the sky but . . . -

n185 9 in Aberdare , Wales, small fish fell with th e rain wice in the same morning.In 1922 in Hungary spiders came down with the rain.Red rain fell in Switzerland in 1755 and in England in 1903.

Things like this don't happen often and ey're not really a big problem when the y do.Other things in the rain, however, are aproblem. Scientists and people living in indust-rial countries (or near industrial com tries) are now very w o e e d about 'acid rain'.

Our ca rs, a u r power stations and so on send chemicals like sulphur dioxide (SO,) andnitrogen oxides into the air. Th es e chemicals mix with wate r and become sulphuric acid(HzSO4),nitric acid HN03), and other things Theyf ll as acid rain. Acid rain kills fish,insects, animals, birds, tr ee s and eventually us,

Acid rain is becom ing a very big problem in Europe, asyou can s e e below. One day,if we don't do something, itwilt be a big problem terrible problem ar eve ry country .

in the world.

Suddenly, apd apparently withoutwarning, the forestshave begun to die.Over half of West Gerqany s greqtforests are now in various stages ofdeath and decline. Just four years ago,only eight per cent of the forestsshowed signs of damage. But someexperts believe that 9Oper cent of WestGermany s forestsw ll be dead by earlynext century.

In Switzerland a third of the forestsare dying. In 1984 alone, 12 milliontrees, covering 14 per cent of its entireforest area, had to be felled.Avalanches are increasing as the treesvanish from the mountainsides. Fortyper cent of Dutch forests show signs ofdamage. More than two million acresin Czechoslovakiaare dying, and morethan half a million acres have beencompletely destroyed. One and a halfmillion acres of forests in Austria are.damaged.

from an article in The bserver by Geofh-eyLean 19110t86

hese charts show the forests ofthree different countries. In the spacebelow each one, write:WG (West Germany'* forests)S (forests in ~wi ber l and ) 2

D (Dutch Forests)

9



Babies in

fjord livewith luck

after crashOSLO: Two infants survivedfor 5 minutes under waterinside a car which crashedinto a Norwegian fjord be-cause of a series of lucky

coincidences.A car driven by theirmother skidded on an icyroad at the weekend andcrashed into the Ganword,at Sandnes on Norway s westcoast, police said yesterday.

The woman scrambled outof the car but the infants,a four-month-old girl anda two-year-old boy, weretrapped 30 feet under thesurface of the near-freezing

water.

She stopped a car, and luckily the car had aradio. The driver called the fire station, andagain the woman was lucky. Th e local divingclub was v ery near t he woman s car, so theperson a t the fire station called the diving club.At the club there we re th ree divers; they gotto the woman s car in thre e o r four minutes.

A doctor who happened tobe driving past when the

divers brought the childrento the surface resuscitatedthem. Police said the twoinfants hearts had stoppedbeating when they were res-cued after 5minutes underwater, bht both were expec-ted to be discharged soonfrom hospital.-Reuter.

(from the Guardian

r Write the numbers 3 8 in the pictures onpage 31 to put them in the c orrect order.



ColoursFavourite colours

A LOT OF scientificwork has been done on the the preferences are nearly the same, except thatcolours people prefer. This work has included blue is the most popular colour and red is thetests on people of ll ages and nationalities. second most popular. According to one scientist,Babies, it seems, prefer yellow and red. Children H.J.Eysenck, the list of favourites s the same forlike red very much too; blue is their second both men and women except that women put yel-favourite, followed by green, violet d orange, low in the Bth place and orange in the sixth, whilewhile yellow is only sixth on the list. For adults men like orange better than yellow.

r Look back and complete the table.

yellow

Women

Light nd colour from ristotle to the cameraPeople often think that optics thescience of lightand seeing) began in Europe. Europeans such asGalileo Galilei (Italy 15644642 and Sir Isaac

Newton (England 1642-1727 were very impor-tant. However, the first really important opticalscientists were Arabs. One of them, Alhazen ofCairo (about 965-1038 wrote a book called TheTreasury of Optics This was, perhaps, the realbeginning of European optical science and,therefore, of what we know about colour today.But it s interesting to see what some earlierthinkers believed about colour.

h t o t l e Greece, th century BC said thatthere are only three colours: red, gree n andblue. He said that if we se e other colours in the

rainbow, these are a mixture ofthe

three col-o u s .Posidonius Syria, about 135-51 BC believed

(like Galileo and Newton) that colours existonly in the mind.

Gaius Plinius Secundus Pliny the Elder ,Rome, AD 23-79 aid that the colours in therainbow are a mixture of clouds, fire and air.

Compare these early ideas about colour with thephotograph on page and the paragraph below.

We see only three colors: Red atthe long-wavelength end of thespectrum, green in the middle, andblue at the short-wavelength end.The sensation of other colors isproduced in themind by noting therelative proportion or the mix ofthese three primary colors.

fromHow to select and use Minolta SLR camerasby Carl Shipman



The spectrum of sunlight. Photographed at the FlandrauPlanetarium in Tucson Arizona by Ted di Sante.

Warm Country In he Morning

ead this with the help of a ,,nary. Marta Lombard oil on board6 x 92 cm w 986

n the top l ft of th e picture above we se e amountain with a long mauve shadow. Below th e perhaps near th e bottom of the picture, and,mountain the re a re some dark trees and a pink corning down from the right, there's a Iong lowfield. There's a long dark line rees in a valley hill. Above that, on th right, there's another hill.



A road for RhenigidaleTHRJ D YS a week, StevenMcCombe sets out fromRhenigidale, a wind-swept croft-ing community on Harris in the

Outer Hebrides, to collect the mail.Heleavesat 7.30 am, walking the

rough, sometimes steep path fromthe village [ ] to the Tarbertroad about 4 miles away.. It takeshim two and a h lf hours to reachTarbert. Then, with letters, news-papers and shopping for the vil-lagers, he returns home, a roundtrip of about 12 miles.

The path is the only overlandroute to the village ight houses.a school, a youthohastel,vanda tele:phone box on the exposed coastbeside Loch Seaforth.

The only other w y to t

to Rhenigiidale s by boat

creel boat from Scalpay [ .

carries ~ e o ~ l end bulkv suoolies toand frdm ihe village. B U ~ badweather, it can be too dangerous to

make the crossing. .



The people of Rhenigidale werewarried that their little villagewould die.

In the last century, 10Q eople livedthere, supported by crofting andfi&ing. Today, three of the housesare empty and there are only twochildren at the school.

Now, at last, things ar e changingIn 1986 he firstpart of the road toRhenigklale was built, but it stops2 d e s rom the village.

In 1989, a single-track, tarred roadwill connect Rhenigidale [. Iwitbthe rest of Harris nd Lewis Andthe villagers, who have longed forsuch news for years, are delighted.Kenny MacKay, 52 who has livedthere with few interrupttans an ilife, said 3t will make a world ofdifference.

In fact Mr MacKay already has The villagers already own three carsplans for the future he has ut at the moment they arestarted a fish farm. Other people in parked a very longwalk from home.Rhenigidalearemaking plans toofor the business the road will bring, from The Ind endent, photographs by rian Hams)

and for the day when they drive to

their houses for the first time.



Who was

Dracula

IFYOU VE se en any of the films, you ll knowthat Dracula, like other vampires, came outat night to drink the blood of living people.We decided to find out more about vampires

and about Dracula in particular.

hotograph from the ilmDracula 1958)

Perhapa j o r c k n o ~h t vumpi~es BUEdidyou know that t q You can keep~omp re~~ayyith ,

r m ut eiv~ravuatn @C nof rrofiocted arirrm lgarlic 4pduith a c m c r f r y ~

ead this with a dictionary -look up only theunderlined words.

Until recently, belief in vampires was strong ineas te rn E u r o p e 3 here a re very many vam-pire stories n a part of modem Czechoslovakiaand Romania called Transylvania. An Irishnovelist, Bram Stoker, wen t there to make notesfor his novelDrm ula (1897) -which was the bookthat inspired all those films.

Stoker got the name for his vampke fromsomeone d e d lad Dracula, who ruled Wal-lachia, a region of Romania next toTransylvania,in the 15th century. He had a castle high in themountains on the border betwe-ransylvania

and Wallachia and he was extremely crueL Hetortured and killed thousands of people.

R a y m o n d T.McNally, the author of Draculaw s a woman (1983), believes that Bram Stokergot some o his ideas for Dracula from a woman

Countess Elizabeth Bathory of Transylvania(1566-1614). She liked to bite and torture younggirls and she killed hundreds of them. She alsowashed in their blood to make herself look young.

Dractala is part legend and part history notliving, not dead; not real, but not just imaginary.Vlad Dracula, Countess Elizabeth Bathory, andthose rulers past andpresent who have torturednd murdered thousands of people - hey re no t

imaginary either.



5 kilos a yearA food that everybody likes what is it?

1 years ago it was very expensive -these days it s cheap and easy to get in mostcountries.In rich countries the average eaten in 1900 was about kilos a year now it s 5

kilos a year.Boys aged 3 to 19 often eat more than 5 kilos a year.About 14 million frican people were taken to the Americas to produce it.

Th e answ er is sugar. But here s another question: why do many people ea t nearly a kiloof it a week?

Thinking about fruit may give us the answer. Good fruit is sw eet -like sugar. Millionsof years ago, when people found fruit they knew it was good if it was nice and sweet.Perhaps now when we eat sugar something tells us, It s sweet, it s good at somemore.

We also like sugar for psychological reasons. Parents often give children somethingsweet when they ve hurt themselves, when they re unhappy or when they ve beengood. Perhaps this is why we think of love and sweet things together, and why we give



sweets and chocolates to people we love. Think about words like sugar and sweet insongs and poems.

We certainlylike sugar, but do we need it? Because people say different hings aboutit, this c nbe a difficult question to answer. These are some of the things people say:

Sugar makes some people fat.Some doctors think that it s bad for the heart.It s bad for the teeth.Honey and brown sugar are better for us than white sugar.Putting sugar in our food and drink is a good way to give ourselves energy whenwe re tired.

Only one of these ideas is definitelywrong -the last one. Putting sugar in our food nddrink is not a good way to get energy. When we re tired and hungry, we need a differentsort of sugar calledglucose; our bodies make this from some of the foods we eat. Giu-cose travels round the body in the blood and is sometimes called blood sugar .



In other words, when people eat sugar for energythey soon want more. This also explains whysugar is one reason people get fat. Is it better,perhaps, to eat only brown sugar or honey? Notreally. Ne ither brown sugar nor honey has muchof anything that is good for you. Honey is 99

sugar, and brown sugar is often just white sugarcoloured brown.

Most people eat too much sugar. In Enghsh-speaking countries (where we probably ea t moresugar th n anywhere else in the world) doctorsand scien tists ar e looking at ways to help peopleeat less sugar. Because of this many of us nowput artificial sweeteners, not sugar, in our drinks,and more people ar e thinking carefully about thefood they buy. Perhaps the sugar problem isn t asbig a s this in your country but it s very possiblethat people a re thinking about it. If you would liketo eat less sugar and would like some ideas tohelp you these suggestions may be useful:

Row to reduce your sug r int ke instead of gateau or ch eesec ake .[. I If you must have cakes, make

Begin by rep lacing su gar in dnnks your own, using half the quantity ofwith saccharin, aspartame (Can- sugar given in standard rec ipes.de re l or NutraSweet) r acesulfame Read the labels on all the foodspotassium (Herm esetas Gold).k ink you buy. Ingredients a re generallylow-calorie soft drinks or squashes. listed in ord er of quantity. If sugar isThis means that you will get an the first, second or t h d ngredient,immediate reduction in calorie the product is a very sweet one andintake without having to cha ng e your

should b e avoided,[. . ]

Watch outtaste for sweet brigs Decide to give for m anufacturers who use variousup sw eete ne rs altogether in two or different h d s of swee ten ers, suchthree weeks, and week by week as honey a nd corn syrup,aswellasred uc e the amount you take in sugar. If suga r is the fourth ingre-drinks. dient, and honey and corn sym p

Stop buying biscuits, swe ets and come next, whe n counted togetherchocolates, and stockup on fruit an d the se ingred ients might ma ke suga rvegetables instead. Eat fresh h i t ingredient number one or two.

adapted rom The Sunday Times ABC Diet And Body Plan

Match thes e words (all from How to reduce your sugar intake with their meanings.

reduce look for and be careful of somethingreplace se less of somethinggive up things cooked or put together in foodingredients put one thing in place of anotherwatch out stop doing something that you often did before (e.g. smoking)



eetNasredin

NASREDIN HOCA (alsocalled Mulla Nasrudin)is a very strangepersoa he hings hesays and does sometimes seem clever, sometimes stupid and often crazy. Is he a

great thinker or anidiot?Is he boththese things? He makespeople think and hemakes

people laugh and he's been doing this for a very long time.People tell storiesaboutNasredin in lots of differentcountries, especiallyin theMiddleEast. He's very popular inTurkeyandinArab countries, but lots of the storiesare known

in Sicily, Greece, Russia and other countries too. Nasredin stories have also been trans-

lated into many languages and are now enjoyed ll over th world. Try this one.

Nslsrudin gave his wife some meat to cook forguests. When the meal arrived, there was nomeat. She had eaten it.'The cat ate it, all three pounds of it,' she said.Nasrudin put the cat on the scales. It weighedthree pounds.'If this is the cat,' said Nasrudin, 'where is themeat? If, on the other hand, this is the meat

where is the cat?'

(from The xploits Of The Incomparable Mullaasrudin by Idries Shah

Many people say that Nasredin was born, severalcenturiesago, in Eskisehir, a city in

western Anatolia in Turkey. The story below is the first Nasredin story I ever heardIt was told to me in a place called Kirikkale, which is also in Anatolia.

Nasredin was expectingguests but he didn't have

a pot big enough to cook for everybody. So he

went across the street to a neighbour's house to

borrow a pot. When Nasredin took the pot back

to the mighbour he also gavehim a smallerpot,

saying, 'While your big pot was with us, it had a

baby.' The neighbour smiled to himself nd took

both pots.

Sometime later, Nasredin asked his neighbour

to lend him the big pot again, and of course the

neighbourwas happy to dothis, hoping that crazy

Nasredin might bring him another 'baby' pot. Afew days later, Nasredin went round to hisneighbour without the pot and said, 'I'm very

sorry, your pot has died.' 'Died ' said the

neighbour angrily. 'How can a pot die?' Well,'

said Nasredin, if a pot canhave a baby, surelyit

can die?'



that the cats in the cattery ometimesas many as 5 or 6 -usually got onvery wellwith each other. There were fights, but they didn t often last more than five minutes,and many cats were good friends with each other, with people and wit other animals.

On cold winter nights it was unusual to find any cats [ ] sleepingalone. Most of them piled, one on top of another, into the two winterbeds, each of which could hold more than 5 cats [ ] Even thosewho preferred Iess crowded conditions could be found sleeping in

groups of three or four in other boxes. They slept together, of course,mainly to keep warm; on warm summer days they would sleep singlyor in small groups. In other words, the cats appeared equally happyeither sleeping alone or sharing a bed with their fellows,

Watching mother cats with their kittens brought surprises too. Jeremy expected fightsand problems when two mother cats and their kittens were in the same room. Insteadthey usually preferred to be together, putting all their kittens in one large group andfeeding and cleaning each other s kittens. This happened a lot when the mother catswere from the same family.

Among the 120 cats that he looked after at the Animal Kingdom, there were many

interesting personalities, but one favourite cat was Blossom. Blossom was very smalland weak when she was born, so Jeremy s wife Chiyoko fed her kom a bottle. WhenBlossom was three weeks old, Chiyoko realised that the kitten could be the answer toa problem. Tobo, an older cat, had been ill and she was not very interested in anything.Chiyoko thought that the kitten would give Tobo a new interest in life and she wasright. Tobo spent the next three weeks happily looking after Blossom.

Then, one morning, Tobo was ill again, She had cancer, and they had to put her tosleep. They were also worried about Blossom. The cancer that killed Tobo can pass



Sisters ya and Uko with their kittens

from one cat to another; perhaps Blossom had it too. They kept Blossom in Mutsug-oro s house, away from the other cats.

Blossom played with everyone -people and animals. special friend was a young pigcalled Malibu.

Malibu would just get settled down o n the sofa with a full belly whenBlossom would scramble up the back of the sofa and leap on her fromabove. The kitten would then start to play with Malibu s ears, causingher to flick them constantly, this flicking only adding to the fun. Finally,after making her get u p and down from the sofa time and time again,Blossom would snuggle down beside her, using her nose as a pillow.

Look at these words from the text about Blossom and Mahbu. Is each word morelike sleep or more like play ?

settle down

scramble

Ipzqflick

snuggle down

Sadly, before Blossom was a year old, they found that she too had cancer. When shedied, they buried her next to Tobo in the Animal Kmgdom s graveyard, where therewere many other animals, including cats, dogs, a pig and a horse.

For Blossom, who seemed to love all creatures great and small, andhad little idea exactly what kind of creature she was herself, therecould not have been a more ideal resting place.

adapted from Cats ingdom by Jeremy Angel)



Bicycles up KilimanjaroHOW WOULD you spend a ten-day holidayin Africa? On the beach? On safari? Cousins

Richard and Nicholas Crane decided to spend

their holiday in 1984 riding bicycles up MtKilirnanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa.

A crazy idea, but they had good reasons

for doing it. First, they both love adventure

and sport, including walking, swimming and

riding bicycles. Second, nobody had done it

before. Most of all they wanted to raise

money for Intermediate Technology.

This organisation works in the poorer coun-

tries of the world to help people with basic

problems food, water, jobs and so on. InIndia, for example, Intermediate Technology

helped to design a better sor t of fishing boat.

The result: more jobs (making boats and fish-ing), more fish, and more money. Money

from Bicycles u Kilimanjaro would buy a

windpump to get water from under the ground

for a hospital at Wajir in northern Kenya. came with bicycles one month ago and

Richard and Nicholas needed help on were turned away. I'm sorry.'

Kilimanjaro, and they also needed someone

take the photographs, so they found three It took three hours of talk before they werehelpers and a photographer to go with them- allowed to t e their bicycles into theThen they had to get food and equipment: ~ ~ ~ i ~ ~ ~ark.tents, clothes, boots, maps, medicine, sleep- Next morning the expedition began. Theying bags and of course bicycles. planned to ride up Kilirnanjaro in five days,

On 6 ecember lgg4, six people and arriving a t the top on 3 December. At firstthree bicycles arrived at the Marangu Hotel, th hotographer rode the third bike, but itnear anjaro National Park- They told the was too difficult to ride it and t e photos, somanager that they wanted to leave early next they left it.day and discovered a terrible problem. It wasn't easy. In some places they had to

carry the bikes. They often fell off, and oncethey got lost in the snow. They got cold and

wet, and the altitude made them feel ill. Sur-

prisingly, on the third day they met another

cyclist who had tried to ride up Kilirnanjaro

alone, but he found it too difficult and finished

his expedition on foot.On the fifth day they began the last part of

the ride. Snow and ice made riding, or even

walking, difficult and slow. But at last, all six

'We want to leave at dawn, and start our

ride up the mountain.'

'What do you mean, start your ride ?

Do you have motor-cycles?'

'No, no, these are bicycles. We want to

cycle them up Kilimanjaro.'

'Well it's out of the question. You're

not allowed to do that. Two Australians

T N Z N I



arrived at the top. They felt great. In hisdmy Richard wrote:

New Year s Eve 1984. Summit Uhuru

Peak at 19,340feet on top of Kilimanjaro.The highest in all of Mi ca. On top of this

bright and shining mountain, we, The

Highest Cyclists in the World, hoisted ourbikes over our heads in celebration.

ind words in the story between b andwith the same meaning as each of

these:

a) to ride a bicycle to ...............b) a bicycle a

...............) a person on a bicycle a

.. ...) a journey on a bicycle a e



though they still fell of Almost at th e bottomof the mountain they met a Frenchman who

couldn't sto p laughing.

'Why [. . .] are you riding bicycles onKilimanjaro?You must be English. Now I

know what I must do next year: carry a

refrigerator to the top '

'What good is a fridge on Kilirnanjaro?'

I retorted. 'At least you can ride a bicycle,

but a fridge would be no help at all .''Yes, yes, but with my refrigerator I ean

keep my drinks cool all the way up the

mountain '

(from Bicycles Up Kilimanjaro by Richard Crane and

Nicholas Crane)

A rutwgpper a c.k9 millatera bauk a mtthe esp rdmd mamy for Inter

m~&& Tecb~logy W,Q by

g 987. Half af th y

aiaburnp in wajir mtw k til Fcixlaa

dmin ~a; t h e r h ~ d ther.ahn will

th Crma &- mey yau open tlm mwspapw and mad, 'Two

c 0 . d Wfffl the A&hti4?

Tedmolagg d p m

momy for new projectf8. f ym'w efTj0yd

th2 ? ? 8XdP M ~ b1& @n

tet

Iakmxhte Te b

An Intermediate Technology windpump



new f mily

A MAN and woman fall n love, they get married,and they have a baby t happens all the time But

ome couples can t have the baby. In Britain, farexample, about one couple in ten have problemsof infertility. Sometimes doctors can help; some-times these couples can only have a family if theyadopt a child.

This is the story of one baby and the couplewho adopted him. Robin is 33 and British., his

wife, Marie-Christine, is 3 and French. They are

both French teachers, and they ve been marriedfor ten years. They live in the county of Avon insouth-west England.

n Britain most adoption is done through aSocial Services department. It isn t always easy;lots of people want to adopt babies, and therearen t many babies to adopt.

We first thought about adoption five yearsago, when some friends adopted a little girl,and that gave us the idea. We apphed to AvonSocial Services to go on the list for adoption.

They asked us a lot of questions about ourinfertility, about ourselves, what we likedabout each other, what we didn t like, our

paren ts, brothers and sis ters , money, how wefelt about other children, how we would bringup a child, and so on. Then we s tar ted waiting-and after two and a half years we still weren ton the list.

They were beginning to lose hope of adopting inBritain. They were also worried about their ages:to adopt a baby in Avon, both parents have to beunder 33 They began to think about adopting ababy from South America, and they applied to an

agency in Colombia. Then, four years after theirfirst letter to Avon Social Services, they had sur-prising news.

We had a visit from the Avon s o d worker;she told us that we were on th e list andalmost at the top. T hen sh e started to tell usabout a baby who was not yet born. She knewthe parents he father was Indian, themother British and sh e thought we wouldalmost certainly be considered for this baby.This happenedjust before th e summ er holiday

in 1985 When we went away on our holiday,we could hardly think about anything else.Robin and Marie-Christine came back on a Mon-



day. They didn't know it, but James, the babythey might adopt, had been born the night before.They rang their social worker, but she couldn'ttell them anything yet. James' first mother had tochoose between two different couples to be James'new paren ts or she could still change her mindabout adoption. Tha t Wednesday, the day beforeRobin and Marie-Christine went back to school,the phone rang. It was their social worker.

'She said, "James has been born and hismother wants you to be the parents." Wejumped over the moon for joy.'

Robin and Marie-Christine's worries and waitingwere not over yet. James' first mother wantedthem to be his parents, and they would take himhome. But any time in the next five months themother might change her mind and take Jamesback.

'We first m et James on Friday of the sameweek. T hat was grea t -w e cried and cried,and James cried too. T he frustrating thing

was that we had to wait a week before wecould bring him home. The re was this baby,who was going to be o urs, but we couldn'ttake him back t o our house .'

This was because James' parents wanted to m eethis new parents and the social worker didn'twant James to go to his new home unt l after themeeting.

'We w ere ve ry worried about the m eeting,but w e thought it was important for James'sake. In fact it was very good; we likedthem , and they liked us. I think it helped

James' first mother a lot.'Th e next day, Friday, they took James home.

'That was an amazing day, becau se we leftschool at four o'clock, quite normally, andcam e home with our ex ercise books andeverything and a baby '

r What happens when? Match the days withwhat happens.

Sunday hey telepho ne the socialworker.

Monday They mee t James.

Wednesday They take James home.

Thursday James is born.

Friday \ hey go back to school.

~hu rsda qi The social workertelephones The baby isborn.'

Friday They mee t James' parents.

After five months, James was legally adopted.Before then, Robin and Marie-Christine some-times w orried that James' first mother might askto have him back.

'We tried not to think about it, but it wasalways in the back of our minds. But nowwe sometimes forget that he's adopted,because he's so much ours '

Bringing up an adop ted child is really no different

from bringing up your own.'The only H e re n c e is that we have verystrong ideas of how we want to bring up ourchild, because we've had to t ink about it somuch for a long time. I don't thinkmanyparents a re a s critical of them selves a s weare; w e want to g et it so right, all the timeOth erwise, ou r child doesn't look like us,though more and mo re people are telling usthat he does.'

James is now 6months old, a happy, friendly lit-tle boy.

'He sm iles all the time -h e loves people. Ifhe's in a shop he p d s heir sleeves, or theirbags or hair, so he can smile at them or t lkto them.

Before it happens, you always thinkabout what it will be like to have a child.Looking back, it's ev en b ett er than Ithought it would be and that's afterwanting a child for six yea rs.'



Ofherpeople muIdn ta m ith WL Think at h e idem

U ~ C I k r ge~lpkW~UISWS t~A, B, e r r d ~ m?

h t A , B , C o 1 : D ~ t ~ S d B i ~ h ~ l ~ w .pop am often ww 12 zulcl

lime h [email protected] almps bok at what is i n t ~ ~ ~ t h g ,n w m max fm m s f you pmkrb k & t h e a f t m w t n ~ b a . d ~ h ~ b &w m r gp.

M a owemy ahauf b k g for mmq e,~ m e & h & & o f e m t r y m dkeep the ir I I.Js;ingm eq mddbe an

d e j r d m a m y o f l m W g aS

* ma& for mn t~ do w cHf mti a ~ r ~ p l ~ s ~ ~ ~ mAnyway3int w d f * bir d

h w a b& er B P ~ @Q ~ Q ~

han90why dmuldn t medl be

m m oo?



Interested? This is what you ll need

Some adviceChoose your colours carefully. Ask forhelp from your wife, girlfriend, sister,mother, or from women selling makeup.Get your own t s more hygienic, andwomen get fed up if other people usetheir makeup all the time. Practise athome and get it right before you go out.Here are some ideas to start with.



'The best thing is meeting all sorts of peopleand caring for them. When somebody who'sill comes into hospital, and with help fromyou and from other people gets better andgoes home well again, it's very rewarding.

But I only get paid 26,564 a year -and ifI have to do overtime I don't ge t paid for it.

Brenda is a housewife, aged 36.m rganbe my w ~ e ks I want. So long

as there are clean clothes to wear and mealsto eat, nobody really minds how r when Ido the housework.

The bad thing is that housework is so

repetitive and unrewarding. Nobody noticesif you t o clean the bathroom. It is only i youdon t dean it that they'll say anything,'

Jane who is 43, is a university professor.'There are two best things really. The firstone is the o ther professors and thestudents; they are very interesting peoplewho come from many B e r e n tbackgrounds. The second thing is that Ilearn new thmgs ll the time both from

books nd from the people around me.The worst thing is the pay. University

professors rarely earn high salaries, eventhough they often work sixty hours r morea week to prepare and teach their lessons,do research and write.'

Th e last three people have very different jobs.Ahwt, who is 26 warks on a ship as an ocean-g g deck officer.

'I enjoy travelling to different places, andmeeting people from different muntries.

My job is well-paid and not monotonous.heworst thing is being away from family

and friends.

idan is 28; he is a composer.'Perhaps the best thing iswhen peoplg aremoved by my work, nd say so. I work athome at the speed I choose, not the clock'sspeed and I get paid for doing what I likemost of ll in life composing music.

But don't get paid very much or v ry

often, and I have to find dl the work formyself. It is often very lonely writing in aflat all on your own fas amonth or two, notknowing if anybodywillplay, publish or ikeyour work.

The last person isPeg, who is a greengrocer.Inmy job Imeet people of all kinds, and wehave some very interesting eonversati~ns.We sell all sorts of fruit nd vegetables,some unusual and some not, nd that'sinteresting too-

The worst thing Long hours DiPtyhands Cold feet Difficult m t o m e r ~ No

holidays You have to smile, be polite, andnever be ill.'

n each space on the right, put one word fromthe text that means something like the wordon the left. (The names tellyou where to lookin the text.)

.......Ahmet)meeting (Fred) ..cQ. ?@&

(Fred) adminhtrative (PauD ...........................

ane) prepare ( B y e ) . .(Aidan)choose B d ).............................



owto remember

Remembering listsWhen you want to remember a number of h n g s

-to go shoppingfor example you probably writea list. But it s possible to remember lists withoutwriting them down. Let s imagine a shopping list:milk, eggs, bread, and a newspaper. Here s oneway to remember it.

You imagine the milk the bread etc. in Me

rent places that you know well n your flat,perhaps, or in your street. First you make a pic-ture in your mind of each thin on the list in a dif-ferent place. Later you think about these placesand remember the things you put there. I always

use places in my flat going from the bed to thebathroom and then the kitchen ike this:I imagine that I wake up and see a carton of

m lk on the bed. Then I get up, and in front of thebedroom door there are some eggs. I go to thebathroom and find some bread in the shower.Next, I go to the kitchen here s anewspaper inthe £ridge.

To remember another list I use the sameplaces again: first the bed, second the bedroomdoor and so on. For a longer list I use other placesin the flat going from the living room to the front

door.To remember lists this way it s important ow

you make the pictures in your mind. Take yourtime and make each picture:

simple for example, don t put lots ofother things on the bed with themilk.

strange put the breadin the shower, noton the table.

strong imagine it well. What colours c n

you see? What can you hear and

smell? How big are things in thepicture?Try this way of remembering when you f i s hreading. Then see if you can remember your listtomorrow. If you can t remember somethingcheck your pictures.

UCLA. When you are introduced to someone,

repeat the name immediately. You might saysomething like, BettyJohnson? Hdo, Betty.

About ten or frfteen seconds later, look at theperson and rehearse*the name silently.Do this

again after one minute, and then three minutes,and thenamewillhaveagoodchanceofbecominglodgedin your long-termmemory.

(from emory by Elizabeth Loftus)

rehearse: (here) repeat

Remembering work

and studyWhen you read or listen to something for a longtime it is, as everybody knows, often difficult toremember the information. Naturally, you have toconcentrate, to think about the new informationand not about other things. However, after a time

this gets difficult nd remembering later is evenmore difficult. If you read or listen to somethingfor two hours, this is what happens:

2 0 4 ik o 4 2A : I

rnins rnins hour mins rnins hod

Remembering names[A] technique for remembering people's names

involves1.

] an idea developed by TomLandauer of Bell Laboratories and Robert Bjork of

But look what happens if you stop for two orthree minutes every 20 minutes:

JO -7rTr T mins hour mins mins our



Of course it s not always exactly 20 minutes. But if you look at your work again this is whatHowever if you can have a break for two or three happens:minutes about every 2 minutes, you d remembera lot more. Perhaps you should stop reading thisbook for a minute. Stand up, walk around, getsome air t ink about somethingelse. How muchwill you remember if you don t look again a t yourbook or your notes?

tim

aft

emembering notes and mind maps

Most people who work or study have to remember This is what you do when you make a mind map ;ideas and information so they write notes. the subject ( Remembering , for example) goes inThese are easier to remember than sentences, the middle and the main ideas become lines frombut they usually start a t the top of a page and go there. Other ideas or information grow fromdown. However it may be easier for the memory these lines like branches from a tree. Here youif you start in the mi le of the page and go out. can see a mind map of How to remember .

When you m ke a mindmap:

put words on the

linesuse one word oneach lineuse eolours,

shapes, pictures,nd arrows tohelp you organiseideas

Anyone can make amind map you don thave to be good atdrawing. If you enjoyyourself when youmake a mind map,you ll remember itwell.



The beginning the middleand the endr Read with a dictionary - ook up only the underlined words.

he beginning

'N o t to be born is best. (Sophocles, Greek poet, 496-406 BC)

'Mr Watson, come here, want to see you.'

(The first words on the telephone, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell.)

That s one small ste p for a man, one giant leapfor mankind.(The h t ords on the moon, July 1969, Neil Armstrong.)

God made man , and then said, an do better than that,' and madewoman. ( ~ d e la o g e r s tJohn, Am erican writer, orn 1894)

he middle

'Som e say tha t life is a . Y o u oin after it's started,and you leave before it's finished.' (Elsa Maxwell, Am erican socialite, 1883-1963)

'Th e W in e of Lif e keeps oozing drop by drop

The Leaves of L ife keep falling one by one.'

(from The uWiycit by Omar Khayyim Persian poet, 11th centur y,translated by Edward Fitzgerald)

'Everythingin fife is exceflent. (Me trodoru s, Greek philosopher, 330-277 BC)

Nothing in life is to b e feared. It is only to be understood.(Marie Curie , Polish scientist, 1867-1934)

'Since we must all die sooner or later, let's enjoy l f e while we can.'(from Waga by Otomo No Tabito, Japanese wr iter, 8th century)

'Those who know do not speak,

Those who speak do not kno w. (L ~o -tz u, hinese philosopher, 5th century BC)

he end

'More fight ' (The last words of Johann von Goeth e, Gennanpoet, 1749-1832.)

Iwant my lunch. (The last wo rds of J. Paul G etty , American multi-millionaire, 1892-1976.)

I ove the ra in, I want the feeling of i t on m y face.'(The last word s of Kathe rine Mansfield, New Zealand write r, 1890-1923.)

'The sun God. (The last word s 0fJ.M.W. Tu rne r, English arti st, 1775-1851.)

1am till a/ive . (Caligula, Roman emp ero r, AD 12-41 -hi s last words before being killed.)



nswers

Three fish

a 3 b) 2, c 1 d 4.

What can you d o w ith an old can?

Water

A camel or a car

A camel if A Ford Fiesta Popular if

you have 600or less you have 24 523 or more

C E

From the clouds Lucky babies



Colours

Children red blue 1 green viole t orhge

Women blue red gre en violet yellow

Iyellow

yellowrange

orange

violeten

A road for Rhenigidale Bicycles up Kilimanjaro

leaves reachvillage suppliesletters

get to

blue

Singing like a bird

11th or 12th century Recorders begin16th+17th century 3

1650+1750+ 21903+ 5

1919- thenToday Again, ver y many people

play the recorder.

red

50 kilos a year

green

A T h e body m akes glucose slowly.

B 1 Ea t sugar, white bread etc.B3 To o much glucose. Insulin changes i t to fat.A1 Ea t rice, fruit, potatoes etc.B2 Th e body makes glucose fast.

reduce look for and be careful ofsomething

replace use less of somethinggive up things cooked o r put

together in foodput one thing in place of

anotherwatch out stop doing something thatyou often did before (e.g.smoking)

12 cats - and Blossom

ettle down

cramble

PLAYLEEP, Ek

a) to cycle c) a cyclistb) a bike d) a ride

A new family

Friday

born.Friday The y m eet James parents.

Makeup for men

Cows customers and cold feet

(Ahmet) meeting (Fred) contact(Fred) administrative (Pa ul) managerialVane) prepare (Brenda) organise(Azdan) choose (Brenda) want

snuggle down60



cknowledgementsWe would like to th ank the following organisationswhich have helped in many different ways : AvonLanguage C ent re, Ba th; English LanguageCe nt re, Bristol; E F L Section, Filton Technical

College; W est of England Language Te ach ersAssociation; th e Koyal Norwegian E mba ssy;Ford M otor Company.

We would also like to thank all the frie nds,relations and colleagues who have helped andcontrib uted in various way s, and in particularMa rta Lom bard, Anita Tirand, and Kobin andMa rie-C hris tine . Than1:s ar e also due to GillieCunningham of the Bell School, Camb ridge,who se talk to a WELTA meeting provided theinspiration for 'How to rem em ber ', and to EdgarHunt for his help with background information for

'Singing like bird'.Our thanks also to Alison Baxter, P ete rDonovan , Pe te r Ducker and Kit Woods ofCambridge University P re ss for theirindispensable ass istance and supp ort.

Lastly w e a re grateful to M ichael Swan andCatherine Walter for their guidance , theirsuggestions, and their encouragement.

Th e auth ors and publishers are grateful to the followingfor permission to reproduce photographs, illustrationsand text s. I t has not been possible to identify thesou rces of all the material us ed and in such case s the

publis hers would welcome information from copyrightholders.

Andre Deutsch Ltd for the adapted extract fromFiguring- the ojl ojNunzbevs by Shakuntala Devi,1979 , on pp.5-6; Th e C;uczrdian for articles on pp.8 and30, euters Ltd; Methuen for the extract fromLiuitzgFishes cdthe World by Hans Hvass on p.9 ;Christine Lindop for the ph otograp h on p. 12; LexiconPublications Inc. for the extract from EizcyclopedinInkrnational on p.12 ; World Books Inc. for theextracts from The W orldBo ok Encyclopedia on p.13;Ardea for photographs on p. 1 3 (Angel Falls byA.W arren), p.14 (Lillooet Lake by S.Ro ber ts, river by

P.M orr is), p.52 (butterfly by J.A.Bailey);C Swith inban k (iceberg) and K. L.Holle (clouds) forphotographs on p.14; Centu ry Hutchinson for the poem'Les son in Reality' by Ilannie Abse from Way out in theCentre on p.14, for the extract from SproutingBeansand Seeds by Judy Kidgway on p.22 and for the adaptedextract from The Sunday TimesM iet andBodyPlan on p.42; Animal Photography Ltd for thephotograph on p.16; The Observer for extrac ts fromarticles on pp.17-19 and p.29 and the photograph o np. 19; Harry Smith Horticultural Photographic

Collection for th e photograph on p.25 ; Fab er and F'aberfor the extracts from Fov Love o u Rose by AntoniaRidge on p.26; Guinness Superlatives Ltd for extra ctsfrom The Guin~zes s ook of Weatherf1977) by Ingrid

Holford on pp.27-8; Scott Polar Res earc h Institute forthe photographs on p.28; Minolta for the ex tract fromHow to select and use Minoltu SL K cnmems by CarlShipman on p.32; T ed di Sante for the photograph onp.33; Marta Lombard for her painting on p.33; Th eHog arth Pr es s, C hatto and Windus for th e poem 1'1voFriends ' from Collected poems Nornza ti MacCaig onp.34; Hiroaki Sato for his translation of the p oem'Clams' by Ishigaki Rin on p.3 4; The I~r~dependetztorextr acts from an article and photographs by BrianHarris on pp.35-6; 'l'he B ritish Library for theengrav ing on p.37; D r Carl Dolrnetsch and M ichalaPetri for the photographs on p.38; the Kobal Co1lel:tionfor the photograph on p.39; Ta te and Lyle for the

photograph on p.40; A .P.Watt for ext ract s from TiheExploits ~ f he Incon~parableMulla Nasritdin by IckiesShah, Pan Books Ltd on p.43; Souvenir Pre ss Ltd forext ract s and photographs from Cats Kingdom byJer em y Angel on pp.44-6; Richard Crane and Nichi I# -

Crane for extra cts and photographs from Bicycles llirKilinza~zjavo,Oxford Illustrated Pr es s Ltd on pp.4-Christian SoulPs for t.he photograp hs o n pp.50-1: ' \ \ ( , I

Poignant Ar chire for the photograph (tribesman) op.52; Farmers Weekly for the photograph on p.54;Nu rsin g Stulzdard (nu rse) and Shell PhotographicLibrary (deck officer a Shell Photo graph) forphotographs on p.55; Addison-Wesley Publishing I \ i

for the extract from Menzoly by Elizabeth Loftus 01

p.56.

Drawings by Nick Spender pp.1. 15 , 53; LeslieMa rsha l lpp . 2 , 3 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 30 , 3 1 , 32 , 56 , 57 ; TonyHall pp.3, 5 , 8 , 16 ,4 2, 43 ; e rry Coll ins pp .4,5 ,29 , 41;Clyde Pearson pp .7 ,8 ,3 9; Mick Loales p.9; ChrisEvans pp.10, 11 1 2 , 1 3 , 1 4 , 2 1 , 2 2 , 3 4 , 3 7 ; LynBre eze pp.23, 24; Shaun Williams pp.27, 28; LlominicFisher p.57. Oth er artwork by J.D .Robinson and KegPiggottPhotography b y Nigel Luckh urst and Michael Martin.Rook designed by Pet er Ducker MSTZ)



* &@is a , - . . -.

m. .. . 7 :

, , . ? > . , '

. . .. -7

:, -,.&ew$,8, ,A < - ., - p< < -

.

. . < .- .I, I

.. . .

something to read 1

Documents