Reading

1. Reorganize the text so that it is in four paragraphs. The topics of the paragraphs are: Scanning, Skimming, Intensive reading. The first sentence is in the correct position.

Three reading skills (or types of reading) recognized as essential by most language instructors are: scanning, skimming, and intensive reading. (a) A student can look quickly at the headings, subheadings, or bold-type words that mark the introduction of new concepts. (b) Intensive reading is better utilized if preceded by skim-reading. (c) Since textbooks have an index at the end, knowing how to use this index helps students find information easily. (d) After reading at the skimming level, students can be expected to generate an organizational outline that shows the main points of a text. (e) Skimming a text introduces the student to the whole. (f) Scanning is a type of reading that involves finding a particular piece of information located in material that is otherwise of no interest to the reader. (g) In intensive reading, the emphasis is on details that support the main points picked out at the skimming level. (h) Skimming is reading rapidly through a text to get a general idea about the subject. (i) Understanding how language is utilized to present thought is essential. (j) Knowing how a text is organized helps a student locate information quickly.

2. A. What is a “reading diet”?

B. Choose the best word to fill in the blanks in this passage.

westerns, war books, horror, science fiction, ghost stories, suspense, spy-stories, thrillers, historical novels, sports magazines, short stories, fantasies, mysteries, literature, fiction, memoirs, biography, classics, fashion magazines, tales, poetry

In focus groups in California and Connecticut that were convened to explore teen reading habits, teenagers made a list of their “unfavorites”. Among them were Ernest Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea (“very slow”), Animal Farm and Of Mice and Men. They explained that they wanted their reading to be set in a present day world.

For boys, that means a reading of __________, __________, __________, and __________. Girls also expressed an interest in __________ and __________ stories, and a taste for romance.

High-school students in Massachusetts have coined a term for their favorite kind of __________, calling it the “psycho-killer” genre of __________ of deranged serial murderers. Thomas Harris’s The Silence of the Lambs and his earlier book Red Dragon remain perennial favorites with students intrigued by the sinister Hannibal Lecter, a gifted psychopath and serial killer who has a penchant for eating parts of his victims.

Christopher Gray, a 16-year-old sophomore, said that his last summer’s reading material consisted of two __________. But this year, his literary appetite was whetted by the chance to earn class course credits for reading up to 200 pages a week of actually anything he pleased. So a few weeks ago, he read Silence of the Lambs, which left him eager to read the third book in the series, Hannibal.

C. Do you think that the teen reading diet in this country is any different from that of American teenagers?