English Comprehension

By: Maryam bint Zulfiquar

Taking up a new hobby usually means that you have to buy some basic equipment to get
started. If you have decided that you want to learn how to paint, then you will need to
know a little bit about what you have to buy and how to choose what you need.

Choosing the Paint

Learning to paint is similar to learning a new language: both require practice and
patience. First, you have to choose which paint you are going to use. Acrylic paints are
good to start with as they are quick-drying. Acrylic paints are excellent for achieving
smooth, plain colours and are quite easy to use on their own without the need to mix
them. If you do want to mix the paints, however, there can be problems. By the time the
mixture is made, the paint may be too dry to be used. Oil paint, on the other hand,
provides a deeper colour, but is much more difficult to use. It takes a long time to dry,
simply because the paint is oil-based rather than water-based.You should also remember
that each colour has a different drying rate.
Comprehension #1: “Starting to Paint”
Mixing the paint

You need an easy-to-clean surface on which to mix the paint and you will find a wide variety
of mixing surfaces available. These are called palettes. It’s best to mix paint with a palette
knife, as it is specially designed for this purpose. It is not a good idea to mix paint with
brushes because they absorb some of it and you will not have enough paint left to work
with.

Brushes

There are four main shapes of brush to choose from. ‘Rounds’ have bristles which come to
a point so that you can create precise lines. ‘Flats’ are good for applying areas of colour and
for creating straight edges. ‘Filberts’ are tongue-shaped and allow you to create broad or
narrow marks that can be curved. Finally, ‘Brights’ are short and useful for applying short
strokes of thick colour.
Comprehension #1: “Starting to Paint”
Painting surfaces

Deciding what surface you want to paint on is important. At the beginning it is probably
best to start with paper because it is cheap and easy to prepare. It’s best to buy blocks of
paper that have been specially prepared so that the paper doesn’t change shape when wet
and then cause the paint to crack. When you are more confident you can begin to consider
painting on other surfaces such as canvas and wood.
Questions:
(a) How is learning to paint like learning a new language?
(b) What problem can occur if you want to mix acrylic paints?
(c) In which ways is oil paint different from acrylic paint? Give two details.
(d) Why are you advised not to use a brush to mix paint?
(e) Which type of brush would you use if you wanted to paint accurate lines?
Comprehension #1: “Starting to Paint”

(f) Why are you recommended to start by painting on paper? Give two details.
(g) What can happen if paper is not properly prepared for painting?
(h) What other surfaces can painters use as they become more used to painting?
Comprehension #2: “Television”
Television viewing continues to grow around the world, even though the internet is now
widely used for entertainment. This may be because the number of ways of watching
television has increased. High definition technology, digital television, the use of digital
video recorders and now 3D technology all contribute to enjoyable viewing experiences.
Research reveals that a typical person views almost 200 minutes of television a day. The
chart below shows what the situation is in a variety of regions around the world.
Comprehension #2: “Television”

We know that many people watch a lot of television so it is important to ask what effect this
may have on children. Research suggests that having the TV on may have a bad effect on
young children’s language development by reducing the amount of conversation between
child and adult. It was found that when the TV was audible, the number of words spoken by
either adult or child reduced considerably. Surprisingly, even children who watched
programmes that were described as educational and specifically aimed at them learnt fewer
new words than children who did not watch the programmes. Unless further research
shows that children under two years old might benefit from TV, parents should encourage
language activities through imaginative play. While there is some evidence that a little TV
viewing may be beneficial for the over twos, the evidence for those younger is less certain.
It is argued that first words are learnt far more effectively from real people than from voices
on the television. In the USA there is a formal recommendation that children under two
years old should not be exposed to TV or computer screens, and a growing body of
evidence is now causing governments and health authorities around the world to consider
issuing similar guidelines. However, parents could choose to limit viewing to an hour a day
Comprehension #2: “Television”

Childhood is a critical period for brain development and the formation of behaviour patterns.
Parents have a responsibility to ensure that the right conditions exist for these
developments. It is very helpful if parents can teach their children how to use their leisure
time more effectively. They can introduce their children to sports, music or other hobbies. An
expert in child behaviour said, “Children can easily be influenced by the programmes they
watch and this can result in a wide variety of psychological problems. Often parents do not
know what their children are watching on television, and it may be that they are being
exposed to programmes which are unsuitable.” Research also shows that television viewing
leads to a decrease in physical activity and an increase in the consumption of sugary drinks
and unhealthy snacks. In particular, children should not have televisions in their bedrooms
as this encourages them to be inactive.
Comprehension #2: “Television”
Researchers had expected that by the age of seven the influence of early television
viewing on children would have disappeared. However, they were shocked to find that
the early experience of television viewing continued to have long-term harmful effects
on school performance and on health.

Questions:

(a) How have new technologies affected television viewing around the world?

(b) According to the chart, in which two regions do people watch between 200 and 250
minutes of television a day?

(c) How does watching television affect children’s language development?

(d) What unexpected effect did educational programmes have on young children’s
development?
Comprehension #2: “Television”

(e) What guidelines are the governments of some countries considering issuing?

(f) Why is it important for parents to know which television programmes their children
are watching?

(g) How is television viewing bad for physical health? Give two details.

(h) What did researchers find particularly shocking as a result of their work?

(i) What can parents do to prevent their children from watching too much television?
Give four details.
Comprehension #4- Form Filling: “Les Surfers’ Group Booking Form”
Christophe Lautrec lives at 34 Place Victor Hugo, in Vannes, a town in France. He enjoys
many sports, particularly skiing, but he has never tried surfing. He has friends who are
expert surfers and they are always encouraging him to learn how to surf. They believe that
he would be good at it because his skiing experience suggests he has a good sense of
balance. Recently, his best friend, Marc Benoit, called Christophe on his mobile,
0676448250, and told him that Jacques Depoint, Gerard Monet and himself were all
planning to go on a surfing holiday that they had read about in a leaflet at college. They
wanted to know if he would like to go along as well. Christophe asked his parents, Vincent
and Marie Lautrec, if they would allow him to go away with his friends. They were happy for
him to go as he had recently had his eighteenth birthday and had done very well in his
exams. They felt that he deserved a reward. His father even said that he would pay the 500
Euros which was the cost of the holiday and which included all meals. He gave Christophe
his credit card number 82713001 so that he could arrange the payment for all of the group.
His friends would then repay his father in cash.
Comprehension #4- Form Filling: “Les Surfers’ Group Booking Form”
Christophe’s friends were delighted when they heard that he could go. They
immediately asked him to be the group leader and sort out all the arrangements,
because he is good at that sort of thing. Christophe booked with the company his
friends had already identified. It was called, ‘Les Surfers’. Vincent insisted that
Christophe should have the full course of beginner’s lessons with ‘Les Surfers’ before
he actually went surfing with his friends. Surfing can be dangerous and he did not want
his son to try it without being well prepared. His mother also insisted that Christophe
made the company aware of the fact that he had recently had an operation on his arm
following a skiing accident. She was quite worried about his arm and hoped that it
would be strong enough to take the strain of surfing. Christophe was very confident
that he was fit enough to do everything, but he was a little concerned about Gerard,
who had quite a serious allergy to nuts and could become very ill if he ate something
that contained nuts and did not get immediate medical attention.
Comprehension #4- Form Filling: “Les Surfers’ Group Booking Form”
Finally, all the arrangements were made, and the group chose to fly from Paris on flight AF
369, which would land at Heathrow in England at 3pm. They would then have to get a train
which would arrive at the surfing resort of Newquay at 8pm. The travelling would not be
easy and so they decided not to take their own equipment but to hire it from the company.
Jacques had done this before when he went surfing in California, and he said that it was
very convenient.

Imagine you are Christophe. Fill in the form on the next page, using the information
above.
Comprehension #4- Form Filling: “Les Surfers’ Group Booking Form”
Comprehension #4- Form Filling: “Les Surfers’ Group Booking Form”
Comprehension #4- Form Filling: “Les Surfers’ Group Booking Form”
Comprehension #5- Note Taking: “Photographing the Extraordinary”
It all began with a trip to Japan. Sara Evans, a photographer from New York, had gone there
to take pictures of different landscapes. During her visit, people kept telling her to go and
see an amazing cedar tree, which was said to be thousands of years old. Sara was so
fascinated by her trip to see this ancient tree that she started a project to photograph the
oldest living things in the world.

It all began with a trip to Japan. Sara Evans, a photographer from New York, had gone there
to take pictures of different landscapes. During her visit, people kept telling her to go and
see an amazing cedar tree, which was said to be thousands of years old. Sara was so
fascinated by her trip to see this ancient tree that she started a project to photograph the
oldest living things in the world.

Sara has travelled widely to find subjects to photograph. In the high Andes she
photographed the 3,000-year-old Ilareta plant, which is an extraordinary relative of parsley
and grows on smooth, round boulders. The shrub is a dense mass of thousands of
branches, each ending in a bud with tiny green leaves.
Comprehension #5- Note Taking: “Photographing the Extraordinary”
The shrub is so solid you can stand on top of it. On a road trip in Namibia, she managed to
find a 2,000-year-old Welwitschia plant. This plant grows only two leaves, which then get
shredded in sandstorms. Having overcome her fear of water, Sara took her camera under
water in the Caribbean, and there she took pictures of 2,000-year-old coral; she said that
the sheer size of it took her breath away. In a Science Institute in Copenhagen, Sara found
a 500,000-year-old bacterium that had been gathered from the Siberian permafrost.

The project is expected to take two more years to complete. In that time Sara plans to
photograph 5,000-year-old moss in Antarctica, a 10,000-year-old shrub in Tasmania and a
23,000-year-old fig tree in Sri Lanka. Sara hopes to have visited every continent on earth by
the time she finishes the project. She always works closely with biologists, and often visits
scientists when they are doing research in their place of work. Sara is constantly worried
about how to finance her travels but she uses a website which collects donations from
anyone interested in supporting such projects.
Comprehension #5- Note Taking: “Photographing the Extraordinary”
Sara is keen to explain that her project is not just about beautiful pictures. She is also very
concerned about the destruction of the environment and says that all of the living things that
she has photographed, which have survived for unimaginable amounts of time, are now in
danger. “The Siberian bacteria are half a million years old and live in the permafrost. If the
permafrost isn’t permanent, then the oldest living things on the planet will die. Maybe my
photographs will encourage people to think about looking after our planet.”

Your school photography club has asked you to give a talk about Sara’s project.
Prepare some notes to use as the basis of your talk.
Comprehension #5- Note Taking: “Photographing the Extraordinary”
Summary Exam Question #1 (10 Marks):
Read the following article about children who do not go to school but who are educated at home. On the
opposite page, write a summary about the advantages of home education.
Your summary should be about 100 words long (and no more than 120 words). You should use
your own words as far as possible.
You will receive up to 6 marks for the content of your summary, and up to 4 marks for the style and
accuracy of your language.

Home Education

When people think about the education of children, they usually think about schools. However, for
a considerable number of children around the world education does not mean going to school, it
means being taught at home in the family. It is legal to home educate in many countries, although
in Germany, Greece, Hong Kong and Brazil it is illegal.

Parents who choose to home educate argue that many people have forgotten that, for young
children at least, home education was the preferred option for anyone who could afford it up to
quite recently. They argue that children learn better in the comfort of their own homes. They are
also free to interact with their parents and other adults in a way that allows them to explore areas
that interest them, at their own pace.
Summary Exam Question #1 (10 Marks):
Supporters of home education say that children are not restricted by the subject matter of a
narrow curriculum or by the content of school books. This has the effect of making them enjoy the
process of learning. Yet the range of subjects taught, other people argue, may depend on the
sometimes limited knowledge of one parent. Another problem may be that children learn only one
point of view on any topic.

Home educators believe that school creates an artificial and highly stressful social situation that
young children in particular find difficult to deal with. Home educated children are free from stress
and appear to get on better with their brothers and sisters, creating a more peaceful and
harmonious home atmosphere. However, there may be a reduction in children’s contact with their
peers and they may lose the ability to make friends of their own age.

It is also claimed by believers in this system that the children find it easier to socialise with adults
because they are not part of the formal culture that characterises school life. This has long-term
advantages because it means that if children encounter problems they are not forced to seek
advice solely from people as young as themselves. They can turn to older family members for a
more mature perspective on the problems they are facing.
Summary Exam Question #1 (10 Marks):
Travelling to and from school is tiring and time-consuming. Children educated at school often
arrive home exhausted with little energy left to complete their homework and no time to relax.
Home educated children do not need to waste their time on travel and are free to use their time
and energy more productively.

Not everyone agrees with all of the advantages that are claimed by home educators and many
actively oppose it as a system. One very serious area of concern is the fact that it is difficult to
check on the progress of children who are home educated. There have been examples of
unsuccessful home education where children have not been learning effectively. Education
authorities have been unaware of these cases and therefore unable to help the children
concerned.

No doubt the debate about whether it is better to home educate or send children to school will
continue for many years to come.
Letter Writing Exam Question #2 (18 Marks):
You recently lost something quite small but very important. Write a letter to your friend about the
incident.

In your letter you should:

• describe where you were and what you lost;

• describe how you felt as a result of this loss;

• explain how you dealt with the problem.

Your letter should be between 150 and 200 words long. Do not write an address.

You will receive up to 9 marks for the content of your letter, and up to 9 marks for the style and
accuracy of your language.