Reading comprehension test:
Living with ‘boomerang kids’
Leaving school or college used to mean leaving home for good – but no
longer. High property prices, student debt, and broken relationships mean
that your child is highly likely to return home several times before finally
making a go of it on their own.
A survey last year for the Social Market Foundation revealed that one in
four people aged between 20 and 30 said they had gone back twice or
more since leaving home. One in eight had returned home more than three
times! Perhaps unsurprisingly, the survey of 1044 people showed that men
were more likely to do this than women –28 percent of men, as opposed to
18 per cent of women.
Suzie Hayman, counsellor, broadcaster, and author says that, while high
property prices and student debt are both compelling factors pushing
twenty-somethings back into the arms of their parents, it’s not the whole
story. She believes that many parents have brought this situation on
themselves by not bringing their children up to be independent.
She feels that mothers are often guilty of this with sons, doing all their
washing, cooking, and clearing up into adulthood, leaving them ill-equipped
for a life on their own. Today’s children are driven everywhere and
generally expect everything to come easily. Little wonder, then, that they
race back to the security of home when things don’t go well in the outside
world.
Despite this, most parents don’t dread having their children return home –
far from it. Many may secretly be delighted, because the child’s departure
may have revealed glaring holes in their relationship with each other. Other
parents are keen for children to return because it makes them feel more
valued. Often parents find it quite tough to go from being the whole world
to their child to suddenly becoming unnecessary when they leave home.
On the other hand, it can be enormously frustrating for parents, who may
have only just adjusted to having an adult relationship again, to find
themselves sharing their home with another adult – who insists on
behaving as if they were still a child.
Questions:
Read the text. Are the statements true (T) or false (F)?
1/ Children often return to live with their parents because they can’t afford
to rent or buy a place to live.___
2/ The majority of people who come back to live with their parents are
female. ___
3/ According to research, the majority of men in their twenties return
home to live with their parents. ___
4/ Suzie Hayman believes that for many parents it is their own fault that
their children return home to live. ___
5/ Many parents are very happy when their children return home to live.
___
What do these pronouns from the text refer to?
1- Their ( line 4) ________________
2- This ( line 9) _________________
3- She ( line 14) ________________
4- Each other ( line 25)___________
5- Them ( line 26) _________________
Pronunciation test:
I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough
Others may stumble, but not you
On hiccough, thorough, laugh, and through.
And cork and work and card and ward
And font and front and word and sword
Well done! And now if you wish, perhaps
To learn of less familiar traps.
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead: it’s said like bed, not bead–
For goodness sakes don’t call it deed.
Watch out for meat and great and threat,
They rhyme with suite and straight and debt.
A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother.
And here is not a match for there,
And dear and fear for bear and pear.
And then there’s dose and rose and lose–
Just look them up–and goose and choose,
And do and go, then thwart and cart.
Come, come, I’ve hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Man alive!
I’d mastered it when I was five.
