Reading and Comprehension. Учебно-методическое пособие по практике английского языка

But she was still the first woman passenger to fly across the Atlantic. She became famous, wrote a book about the crossing (called “20 Hours, 40 minutes”) and travelled

around the country giving lectures. George Putnam was like a manager to her, and she eventually married him in 1931.

Then, in 1932, Amelia flew solo across the Atlantic, something that only one person, Lindbergh, had ever done before. Because of bad weather, she was forced to land in the middle of a field in Ireland, frightening the cows. She broke several records with this flight: the first woman to make the solo crossing, the only person to make the crossing twice, the longest non-stop distance for a woman and the shortest time for the flight. Now she was really famous. She was given the Distinguished Flying Cross (another first for a woman), wrote another book, and continued to lecture. She also designed a flying suit for women, and went on to design other clothes for women who led active lives. Amelia continued to break all sorts of aviation records over the next few years. But not everyone was comfortable with the idea of a woman living the kind of life that Amelia led.

One newspaper article about her finished with the question "But can she bake a cake?" When she was nearly 40, Amelia decided that she was ready for a final challenge – to be the first woman to fly around the world. Her first attempt was unsuc-

cessful (the plane was damaged) but she tried again in June 1937, with her navigator, Fred Noonan. She had decided that this was going to be her last long-distance “record breaking” flight. Everything went smoothly and they landed in New Guinea in July.

The next stage was from New Guinea to Howland Island, a tiny spot of land in the Pacific Ocean. But in mid flight the plane, navigator and pilot simply disappeared in the bad weather. A rescue search was started immediately but nothing was found.

The United States government spent $4 million looking for Amelia, which makes it the most expensive air and sea search in history. A lighthouse was built on Howland Island in her memory. Amelia always knew that what she did was dangerous and that every flight could be her last. She left a letter for her husband saying that she knew the dangers, but she wanted to do what she did. People today are still speculating about what might have happened to Amelia and Fred Noonan. There are even theories that they might have landed on an unknown island and lived for many more years. Whatever happened, Amelia Earhart is remembered as a brave pioneer for both aviation and for women.

After reading Exercise

Decide which is the correct answer to each of the 7 questions below.

1.What was Amelia interested in as a child? a. Engineering.

b. Successful women. c. Planes.

2.When did Amelia's life change?

a.When she flew in a plane .

b.When she worked in a hospital

c.When she started university

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3.When did Amelia break her first record? a. 1922.

b. 1928. c. 1932.

4.Who piloted the plane that crossed the Atlantic in 1928? a. Amelia Earhart.

b. George Putnam. c. Wilmer Stultz.

5.What was important about Amelia's 1932 solo Atlantic crossing? a. She was the first person to do it.

b. She was the first woman to do it. c. She landed in Ireland.

6.What happened in 1937?

a.Amelia flew around the world.

b.Amelia disappeared.

c.Amelia's plane crashed on Howland Island.

7. What did the rescue search find?

a.Nothing.

b.The plane.

c.Amelia's body.

PAPUA NEW GUINEA by Richard Sidaway

Why New Guinea? One of the first Europeans to arrive in the 16th century from

Portugal thought the country resembled Guinea in West Africa. Why Papua? The word comes from the Malay language and means ‘fuzzy-haired’, referring to the natives. Why

have such a long name when you can abbreviate it?

Papua New Guinea is a bit of a mouthful, so most people shorten it to PNG. Here are some of the many curiosities you might come across if you visit:

P idgin – or Tok Pisin, is the language that at least 2 million of the 5 million Papuans use to communicate with each other, in the street or in parliament, on radio and TV, possibly because the island has so many other languages (over 700). Pidgin

originated as the lingua franca between foreign traders and natives and denotes any ’language’ which does not have a fully developed grammar and a vocabulary

which is a mixture of other languages, in this case Portuguese, English, German and Melanesian. or example, the word for moustache is ‘mausgras’ (mouth grass), child is

‘pikinini’ from the Portuguese word for ‘small’, and ‘raus’ comes from German ‘get out’.

A ctive volcanoes – being situated on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, the island has at least fifteen major volcanoes. The provincial capital of Rabaul, once a beautiful coastal town, was almost completely destroyed by the eruption of Tavurvur and Vulcan

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in 1994. Many buildings collapsed under the weight of volcanic ash which turned to mud after the rains and then hardened like cement. Luckily, the town had been evacuated the night before and only five people died.

P ostage stamps – during the First World War, a set of stamps issued by

the former Germany colonial authority was used by the Australian occupying forces who simply added the British King’s initials over the top. This only happened for

a short time and as a result they are extremely rare. Today, one stamp originally costing five shillings can now sell for $10,000.

U nusual animals – most people think that marsupials only live in Australia. Not so. There are quite a few weird and wonderful examples here too, like the tree

kangaroo, along with egglaying mammals such as the echidna, the New Guinea Singing

Dog (see below) and the world’s longest lizard, the Salvatori Monitor, which is over 3 metres long.

A mazing birdlife – any ornithologist would jump at the chance to visit New Guinea with its 700 species of birds. The most striking is the Bird of Paradise, whose

mating ritual is emulated in the local tribal dances, and whose image adorns bank- notes and the country’s flag. Another is the flightless Cassowary, which uses the bony

protuberance on the top of its head to force its way through the dense rainforest. Then there are countless variety of parrot, cockatoo and hornbill, not to mention a pigeon the size of a turkey, and the pitihui, thought to be the only known example of a poisonous bird!

N atural Resources – the country is rich in minerals tupe gold and copper are mined extensively which together with oil, bring in three quarters of the country’s

export earnings. Coconut and palm oil are also significant industries and PNG produces its own tea and coffee. The most spectacular resource – the trees of the rainforest – are being cut down at an alarming rate by loggers, however. Even so, companies have to tread carefully in this country as 97 % of the country is owned by the people, and local clans expect compensation for lost land. When a copper mine polluted a river on the island of Bougainville in the 1980s, it provoked a ten year civil war and attempt at independence.

E ating people – usually considered to be wrong in most parts of the world,

cannibalism used to be very common in parts of PNG, and human flesh, usually of a tribe’s enemies, was a treated as a delicacy. Thankfully, the practice largely disap-

peared in the 1950s, which was good news for the tourist trade.

W orld’s largest butterfly – the Queen Alexandra Birdwing butterfly, with a wingspan of over 30cm, is a tricky creature to find, in spite of its size. It lives only in the coastal rainforest in the northern part of the island, stays mostly up in the canopy, 30 meters from the ground, and only lives for about three months. The caterpillar feeds on a poisonous plant, the pipevine, which makes it toxic to any potential predator.

G ender Relations – the Trobriand Islanders aroused great interest amongst students of human nature after the publication of research by the anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski in the 1920s. It appeared to show a reversal in the usual gender roles prevailing in most human societies. At the annual Yam Festival, the young maidens were very assertive in their quest for a mate, to the point where it was the custom for groups of adolescent girls to rape lone males.

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U nusual musical instruments – bamboo bands were popular in the islands in the 1970s, musicians who played tubes of bamboo by hitting them with sandals! An older instrument is the nose flute, a piece of bamboo from which sound is produced not by blowing through the mouth but through the nose. The preference for this method of playing may be connected to the idea that breath, which passes through the nasal cavity, is the essence of the human soul. I nfinite variety of plants – there are

over 11,000 known types of plant in New Guinea, the most colourful being the coun- try’s orchids, of which there are 3,000 different species. PNG is rich in food plants –

tropical fruits, root and leaf vegetables, beans and nuts, along with many herbs, spices

and flavourings including pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger and vanilla. Scientists hope that the islands’ yet uncatalogued plants could also hold cures for HIV, malaria

and cancer.

N ew Guinea Singing Dog – most dogs whine or howl from time to time, but this species actually sounds like it is singing. The song has been likened to a bird call

or even the sounds that whales make. It looks similar to the Australian Dingo with a reddish coat and pointed ears, and was only ‘discovered’ in the 1950s when a pair

was taken to a zoo in Sydney. Scientists think it was originally domesticated, and then escaped to the mountain forests where it now makes its home.

E arthquakes and tidal waves – several tectonic plates meet under New Guinea and so it suffers from frequent earthquakes. These are often followed by tidal waves or tsunami. In July 1998, after an earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale, a tsunami ten metres high hit the north coast and more than 3,000 people lost their lives or

went missing.

A irstrips – there were 560 at the last count- that’s one for every 10,000 people.

(In comparison, Britain, with ten times the population, has only about 200). Going by plane is the easiest way to travel any distance as there are no railways, and the roads

are often poor due to the mountainous terrain. And if you are responsible for a road accident, you may end up having your car stoned and burned, so you’re probably better

off flying!

After reading

Exercise 1

Find the significance of the numbers in the table, which are all from the text. There are two answers for each.

1.The height above the ground in metres that the largest butterfly in the world usually lives.

2.The number of bird species in PNG.

3.The number of languages spoken in PNG.

4.The number of orchid species in PNG.

5.The number of people per airstrip.

6.The number of victims of the tsunamis in 1998.

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7.The value in dollars of a PNG stamp from WW1.

8.The wingspan in centimetres of the largest butterfly in the world.

9.When cannibalism stopped.

10.When the Singing Dog was discovered.

Exercise 2

What’s the connection between the following pairs of things mentioned in the article?

1.'Papua’ and ‘mausgras’

2.Tribal dances and the Bird of Paradise

3.Whales and a species of dog

4.Australia and Germany

5.Earthquakes and tsunamis

DIGITAL HABITS ACROSS GENERATIONS

Read an article about how people at different ages use computers and smartphones to practise and improve your reading skills.

Before reading

Do the preparation task first. Then read the text and do the exercises.

Preparation task

Match the definitions (1–8) with the vocabulary (a–h).

Reading text: Digital habits across generations

Today’s grandparents are joining their grandchildren on social media, but the different generations’ online habits couldn’t be more different. In the UK the over-

55s are joining Facebook in increasing numbers, meaning that they will soon be the site’s second biggest user group, with 3.5 million users aged 55–64 and 2.9 million

over-65s.

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Sheila, aged 59, says, ‘I joined to see what my grandchildren are doing, as my daughter posts videos and photos of them. It’s a much better way to see what they’re doing than waiting for letters and photos in the post. That’s how we did it when I was a child, but I think I’m lucky I get to see so much more of their lives than my grand- parents did.’

Ironically, Sheila’s grandchildren are less likely to use Facebook themselves.

Children under 17 in the UK are leaving the site – only 2.2 million users are under 17 – but they’re not going far from their smartphones. Chloe, aged 15, even sleeps with her phone. ‘It’s my alarm clock so I have to,’ she says. ‘I look at it before I go to sleep and as soon as I wake up.’

Unlike her grandmother’s generation, Chloe’s age group is spending so much time on their phones at home that they are missing out on spending time with their

friends in real life. Sheila, on the other hand, has made contact with old friends from school she hasn’t heard © 2019 British Council www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish from in forty years. ‘We use Facebook to arrange to meet all over the country,’ she says. ‘It’s changed my social life completely.’

Teenagers might have their parents to thank for their smartphone and social media

addiction as their parents were the early adopters of the smartphone. Peter, 38 and father of two teenagers, reports that he used to be on his phone or laptop constantly. ‘I was always connected and I felt like I was always working,’ he says. ‘How could I tell my kids to get off their phones if I was always in front of a screen myself?’ So, in the

evenings and at weekends, he takes his SIM card out of his smartphone and puts it into an old-style mobile phone that can only make calls and send text messages. ‘I’m not

completely cut off from the world in case of emergencies, but the important thing is I’m setting a better example to my kids and spending more quality time with them.’

Is it only a matter of time until the generation above and below Peter catches up with the new trend for a less digital life?

Exercise 2

Write the phrases in the correct group.

Discussion: Who uses their phone the most among your family or friends?

COP26 – THE UN CLIMATE CHANGE CONFERENCE

The COP26 UN Climate Change Conference will take place 1–12 November 2021, in Glasgow, Scotland. The event will bring together country leaders, experts and environmental campaigners to take urgent action against climate change.

Before reading

Do the preparation task first. Then read the article and do the exercises.

Preparation task

Match the definitions (a–h) with the vocabulary (1–8)

COP26 – the UN Climate Change Conference

Introduction

The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres recently said, ‘2021 is a make or break year to confront the global climate emergency.’ This means that action taken now will decide whether we succeed or fail completely. ‘If this task was urgent before, it’s crucial now,’ said Patricia Espinosa, a UN climate change leader. The COP26 summit is seen as a last opportunity to limit climate change to 1.5 ºC and meet the goals

of the 2015 Paris Agreement.

What is COP26?

This year will see the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference. These events are also known as ‘COPs’, which stands for ‘Conference of the Parties’. The con-

ference was due to take place in 2020, but it was postponed because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The meeting of world leaders will now be held from 1 to 12 November 2021, in Glasgow, Scotland. The United Kingdom and Italy are the hosts and share the presi-

dency this year. Sir David Attenborough, the British natural historian and much-loved

TV personality, has been named the COP26 People’s Advocate for climate change as part of the preparations.

The 2015 Paris Agreement

COP26 is an opportunity to get the world on track to meet the objectives of the 2015 Paris Agreement, which was signed at COP21. The Paris Agreement represented an important moment in the climate change process because it was the first time there was a legal agreement bringing countries together to act. Since then, 190 countries have

joined the Paris Agreement. The goal is to keep global warming to well below 2 ºC, ide- ally 1.5 ºC. To do this, countries need to reduce CO2 emissions as much and as fast as

possible. However, time is running out. Despite the Paris Agreement, not enough has

been done to limit climate change or to manage its impact on people and the planet.

What’s the plan now?

The aim of the COP26 conference is to bring international leaders together to make faster progress towards the goals of the Paris Agreement. The UN is asking the biggest CO2-emitting countries to come to COP26 with ambitious plans to cut their emissions. The 2021 event has four goals, set by its hosts, the UK and Italy:

•agreeing to more ambitious action to reduce carbon emissions;

•strengthening adaptation to the effects of climate change;

•making money available for climate action;

•improving the way countries work together on energy change, clean road

transport and nature.

COP26 brings together country leaders, experts and environmental campaigners to work on the biggest challenge the world faces today. It is time for people to come together to take ambitious and fast action against the climate crisis.

You can find out how you can get involved by visiting the British Council’s

Climate Connection site: https://www.britishcouncil.org/climate-connection.

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1.The conference tackles the issue of climate ………………………………

2.Environmental ……………………………… were unhappy when the confer-

ence was postponed.

3. COP26 is a last opportunity for countries to meet the …………………………

of the Paris Agreement.

4.The aim is to limit global ……………………………… to below 2 ºC.

5.Countries need to present their plans to cut CO2 ……………………………

6.International ……………………………… will come together at the summit

to discuss the action needed.

7. The UN is asking for ambitious ……………………………… for change

from the countries with the highest carbon emissions.

8. Climate change is the greatest ……………………………… the world faces today.

Discussion:

What do you think is the most important action to be taken to confront the climate emergency?

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EASTER

Easter is the most important festival of the year for most Christians and a holiday for many others. Read on to find out more about it.

Before reading

Do the preparation task first. Then read the article and do the exercises.

Preparation task

Match the definitions (a–h) with the vocabulary (1–8).

Easter

The meaning of Easter

Easter is a Christian festival which marks the resurrection of Jesus Christ. For many Christians, Easter is a celebration of the triumph of life over death, and a very important time of the year. Many non-Christians also have a holiday at this time, so it is a popular time to travel or spend with friends and family. We see lots of symbols of new life at Easter, especially eggs, chicks, flowers and rabbits. These symbols go back to ancient pagan traditions which celebrated fertility, rebirth and new growth after the long, winter months.

When it is celebrated

The dates of Easter change from year to year but it usually falls sometime between the end of March and the end of April. In Western Christianity, Easter Sunday is the first Sunday after the first full moon of spring, which starts on 21 March. The Eastern Orthodox churches, which use a different calendar, have a slightly different way of calculating Easter and usually celebrate Easter a little earlier or later

Holy Week

The week before Easter is called Holy Week. The first day of Holy Week is Palm Sunday, which is the Sunday before Easter. Many Christians celebrate this as the day that Jesus entered Jerusalem and people threw down branches from palm trees on the road to welcome him. Four days later is Maundy Thursday, which marks the Last Supper, when Jesus ate bread and drank wine with his twelve disciples. The following day is Good Friday, which is significant for Christians as the day that Jesus was put to death

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