Something to read 1

Whatever course book your students are using, it may be a helpful indication of level to know that students using Level 1 of the Cambmdge English Course should be able to begin reading f

Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge

The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RP

40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011, USA

10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia

0 Cambridge University Press 1988

F i s t published 1988

Reprinted 1990

Printed in Great Britain

by Scotprint Ltd, Musselburgh, Scotland

ISBN 0 521 34817 X

Copyright

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 entire books or the making of multiple copies of extracts Written permission for any such copying must always be obtained from the publisher in advance

Miss Angell- secretary 17

Fresh from the kitchen 20

Noises people hate 23

A rose called 'Peace' 25

From the clouds 27

Lucky babies 30

Colours 32

A road for Rhenigidale 35

Singing like a bird 37

Who was Dracula? 39

Makeup for men 52

Cows, customers and cold feet 54

Introduction

Ask a teacher (or othfir English speaker) to help you with this introduction

Welcome to Something to Read 1 , a collection of 32 short texts on a variety of subjects for Beginner and Elementary students of Enghsh As you'll see from the Contents page,

there are three groups of texts; the first group is easier than the second, and the second

is easier than the third Within each group the early texts are usually simpler than the later ones It's not necessary, however, to start at the beginning and read through the whole book in order We've provided you with a choice of topics so that you can look for things that interest 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 such authentic material has been shortened - for reasons of difficulty, space or organisation

- you'll see [ .]

When you're reading, we suggest that you concentrate on general meaning first rather than trying to understand every word In other words, try not to use a dictionary all the time Where we feel that a dictionary would be particularly helpful, we tell you After the &st few texts, there are tasks, marked * These are there to give you help with meaning and opportunities to assess your reading, if you want them These tasks are not tests of memory, so do look at the text while you're daing them The answers

to the tasks are on pages 59-60

We hope you enjoy the book!

Whatever course book your students are using, it may be a helpful indication of level

to know that students using Level 1 of the Cambmdge English Course should be able to begin reading from the first group of texts by the time they reach Unit 12 and from the second and third groups at about Units 16 and 24 respectively

Every day

* Read this with a dictionary - look up only the underlined words

More than 172,000 babies are born

204,820 tonnes of fish are caught

75,972 cars, 240,821 TV sets and 419,178 radios are made

1,780,465 people travel by plane

More than 2 cigarettes are made for every man, woman and child in the world

75 Americans, 55 Japanese and 5 Swedes 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

The Sultan of Brunei - the richest man in the world - gets $282,191

11,673,342 Russians go to the cinema

In Britain

2,000 babies are born, 1,100 couples

get married, and 1,800 people die

There are 68,500,000 phone calls

32,000,000 letters are posted

and 2,454 of them pass

And

The k s on your head grow about 0.33 m., and between 30 and 100 of them fall out -

You blink 17,000 times

While you sleep you dream for about 2 hours and lose 340g in weight

Where we live

Cities and towns

40% of the people in the world live in cities and towns In Britain 90.83% of people live

in cities and towns; in Burundi it's 2.29%

\

in cities and towns - n n o f

world For exam-

ple, in the United

States people

earn an average

of $6,400 in one

year

TABLE 1

The Lot of the Many, a Lot for the Few

Average income per head, 1981 Shares of world populi " I, 1981 Shares of world income, 1981

Sources: Lloyds Bank Economic Review on Tatwan 0 data not available

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

Table 1 shows that the poor countries (where

people &TI an average of $400) have 49% of the

population of the world but 5% of the money The

rich countries (where people earn an average of

$6,400) have 67% of the money but 15% of the population

Some interesting numbers One

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

Here it stops, but look also at 11:

and at 111:

142857 - the number in a circle

Strange things happen when you multiply this number

First set out the digits in a circle ('digits' are the ten

numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)

Now multiply 142857 by the ntunbers from 1 to 6:

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

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 Figuring - the Joy of Numbers by Shakuntala Devil

A year in England

A LOT of people who study English want to come

to Britain - perhaps to study English, perhaps to

travel, but certainly to try using the language

Anita Tirand came to England inJuly 1986 to spend

a year working and learning English

Anita is 25 and comes from a town near Mar-

seilles in France She studied Spanish and French

at university, but not English

'I studied English at school for seven years,

but I didn't like it very much The

pronunciation was difticult, and the lessons

were boring - we learnt about the royal

family, the bad food, the bad weather

I didn't think England was a very exciting

place '

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 my

boyfriend came from France to see me, so

we spoke French all the time It rained a lot

and we just stayed at home I didn't like it

very much

Now I know it's a very bad thing to do, to

come to a country and just stay with people

from your own country You don't see

anything and you don't try to speak.'

In 1985 Anita went to the Canary Islands for a

year to teach French When she was there she

did some work as a translator, but she soon

realised that to work as an interpreter or trans-

lator she needed English

She wrote to a good friend jn Bristol - an English girl she had met at ttversity in France - who said, 'Come to England.'

'When I came here I couldn't s p e l English

- "Do you like?", things like that, but no

more I stayed at my friend's place, and she helped me a lot

I t was very tiring at the beginning Every night when I went to bed I was so tired, because all day I tried to understand and tried to speak And I couldn't read the

newspaper, so I didn't h o w what was

happening in the world I felt I was in a

balloon - my world, my house, and that's all.'

ants, washing dishes and preparing food Because

she couldn't speak much English, she sometimes

had problems

'I remember once I worked for two days in

an Italian restaurant, and after 12 hours

working without a break they gave me $12

I was 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 or

three hours a day, but then she began going to

English classes She also began giving French and

Spanish lessons at home, and she worked as a

waitress in a restaurant two days a week

After this year Anita would

year course m interpreting

Paris, but she'll need very

French and Spanish So perhaps she'll spend another year in England

'I would like to have another year here All this year I was trying to understand; with another year I could learn to speak well I'd like to go to the north and to Scotland, to see a different part of Britain, though I like Bristol very much

I like the way people live here - a lot of young people sharing houses, and a friendly

atmosphere In France you live alone, or perhaps with one friend, or in a couple You don't share so muck

And the weather isn't bad every day They told us, "It rains every day in England," 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 true either I know I was lucky, but people are really more open and friendly than I thought '

The M e 1 Tower has been

immortalised in a new form

-a model built by a Span-

iard using 884 cows' teeth

and six of his own Mr Juan

Merchant, aged 58, stid from

his home in Sabadell, north-

eastern Spain, that he collec-

ted 3,000 teeth from a Mend

who works in an abbatoir

-Reuter

Three fish

Theri are about 100 different kinds of puf~erfis~f(br

Tetraodontidm) living in all the warm seas of the

world When they are afraid they fill up with air - or

water - like a football phe fish in the picture is a

Florida Pufferfish (Shaerozdk?s ne$helus); it lives in

the Gulf of Mexico and is &i%t 25-27 cm long

The Black Deep-sea Angler (Melanocoetus cirrifer) I

-

l i w 1400-1800 metres do- the Atlantic 0ceanL7

It has a very big mouth with long teeth and it has a

light The Black on its head Deep-Sea G l e r This light helps isabout it catch 10 cm its food, long b

Whale Shark, Rhincodon typus) ,540 in rS3.7

metres] [ .] This is the largest fish in the world

It occurs inthe warm of all three oceans,

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

Texas, an egg 'was found which was 11 in

r27.5 cm.] long, 5 in r12.5 cm.] broad, and 3$

in [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 0 c) Florida Pufferfish 0 dl Pufferfish 0

What can you do with an old can?

In the house or the office

with stones or coins Use it to hold papers on

your desk Make two and use them to h ~ l d the

door open

Use it as a candle holder when there's no

electricity

You can also use it as an ashtray

Make a tissue holder Cut the top off, iill the

can with a roll of tissues Pull them out one at

a time from the middle

Make an umbrella stand or a spaghetti holder,

Cut the tops off three tins and the bottoms off

two of them Glue them one on top of the other,

put something heavy -like a large stone -in the

bottom 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 nail (to make holes) and a long

piece of strong string

Make musical instmments using

If 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 lots of other things you can do too

1 You can make a 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 can make a hat to wear to parties

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

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

Coloured

legs

THIS IS the market in Tordera,

a small town in Spain I went

there with a group of friends one

Saturday morning The market

was busy, I remember, and

noisy there were babies crying,

dogs barking music playing, and

people calling to their friends

There were lots of wonderful

smells too -fried onions, coffee,

cheese and fresh bread

All kinds of things were for

sale - food and furniture, dogs

and dresses, cassettes and

clocks And there were dozens

of people - selling, buying, talk-

ing, eating, trying on clothes, I

ad just walking Gound and

looking

We were all 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 suddenly the sky was full of

market, but I did get something

I liked - this photo of a line of

coloured tights, dancing in the sun in front of the old church

Water an egg is about 74% water, a piece of

steak about 73%, and w&exrnelon about

92%

(from Encyclopedia International)

Your body is about two-thirds water A

chicken is about three-fourths water,

and a pineapple is about four-fifths

water

(from The World Book Encyclopedia)

jr Look back at the information and put the

numbers in the circles

The highest waterfall in the world, at 979 metres,

is Angel Falls, in Venezuela

The waterfall with the biggest volume of water

- 793,000 m3 in one minute -is Guaira Falls on

the Par& River between Argentina and Brad

There is more water than anything else in the world, but, of course, fresh water is

more useful to people than sea water 1

We live in a world of water But almost all of it - about 97 per cent - is in the oceans This water is too salty to be used for drinking, farming, and manufactur- ing Only about 3 per cent of the world's

water is fresh (unsalty) Most of this water

is not easily available to people because

U I it is lockedpin glaciers a6d icecaps I

I I (from The World Book Erzcyclopedia) I

You probably know that dl matter can be golid, liquid Qr

gas So water - or H& rather - e m be ice, liquid or

steam But did you know that water is the anly substance

that is faund mtarally in these three states?

Poem

jr Read this poem with a dictionary

The poet, Dannie Abse, is a Welsh Jew

Lesson in reality They held up a stone

I said, 'Stone.' Smiling they said, 'Stone.' They showed me a tree

I 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 people

theyye the most expensive thing they buy after

buying a house or a flat But there are cheaper

ways of travelling? so we decided to compare a

family 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 Ford

Fiesta Popular cost 614,523 You can make money

on your camel if you sell it again, but not on your

car

Fuel

The Ford Fiesta Popular, travelling at a speed of

90 kp.h., uses 5.4 litres of petrol in 100 km It

carries just over 40 litres of petrol The car, then,

can travel 740 km in eight hours before it needs

more petrol

Camels cost nothing to feed They can eat

things that other animals can't, like dry sticks

They do need water, but they can go without it

for a long time - two weeks or more When they

find it, they can drink 114 litres in ten minutes

However, a camel can only travel 160 km a day

- and it must have water every day to do this But the camel does have one big advantage: it can smell water from a distance of 1.5 km No car can tell you where the nearest petrol station is

Speed

The car's fastest speed is 135 k.p.h For the

camel, it's 14-16 k.p.h

Where can it go?

Cars need roads and they don't like very hot or very cold weather Camels, however, can go almost anywhere and they can live and work in very hot places - and in very cold places

What else do you get?

Cars have all sorts of extra things for the driver, e.g radios, heating, and cigarette lighters There are also six or seven different sorts of Ford Fiesta, but only two sorts of camel

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

What can you do with it

With a car - not much Sometimes you can get a

bit of money by selling parts of it; sometimes, however, you have to pay somebody to take it away A dead camel is much more useful; you can make shoes and bags from the skin

How can you get a new one?

You can't make a new Ford Fiesta yourself - you have to buy one However Ford can make you one in 22 hours

You can make a new camel if you have a male and a female camel, but you'll have to wait about

a year before the camel is born, and another 10-

12 years before it is adult

Personality

Cars do not love or hate their drivers, though some people don't believe this Camels some- times begin to hate their riders violently When this happens, the rider has to give his clothes

to another person and go away The other per- son gives the clothes to the camel, which kicks and stamps on them After this, the camel is double rows of eyelashes to keep sand out of their happy ae

eyes, and can close their nostrils to keep sand out

of their noses

You do get things from camels too - milk, hair

for making cloth, and dung You can also eat your

camel, of course - but then you can't ride it

Camels live for 30 to 50 years The Ford Fiesta

Popular was first made in 1980, so it's cliffcult to

Which one is best?

A camel i f :

you have 2600 or less

0

A Ford Fiesta Popular i f :

IRENE ANGELL left school at 15, went to a secretarial col-

lege for six months to learn typing and shorthand, and then

worked in London as a secretary Being ;a secretary is not

unusual for a young woman today, but Miss Angel was born

in 1896 and went out to work at a time when most women

worked in the home

In an interview in The Observer in January 1987, Miss

Angell talked about her life and work in London A secretary's

life today is, of course, very different from the time Miss

Angell remembers Nowadays secretaries wear more or less

what they like

'They dress so beautifully' she said In her early days, office uniform was a long navy-blue skirt and a white blouse If you were daring, you might wear a pink blouse, she recalled

To keep their sleeves clean, secretaries ware paper cuffs, which they changed each day and on which they would often jot shorthand notes Hats were

de rigpeur - felt in winter and straw in summer - but lipstick was forbidden

A secretary in London today works from about 9 a.m to 5 p.m Monday to Friday, with breaks for tea or coffee and an hour for lunch Miss Angell worked from 9 a.m to

and she wasn't paid in her lunchtime

In one office where she

over by a supervisor 'The

supervisor would call you and

tell you your boss had rung,'

Miss Angell recalled 'When

you went out and when you

returned, you entered the

times on a large board hanging

on the wall and added in brac-

kets the number of letters you

Bridge was threepence a day

and with lunch - steak and

kidney pie, potatoes and a cup

of 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 minute -

and she loved it The end of f i s AngelYs working life was as unusual as the beginning:

she was a secretary till she was 82 years old Perhaps it's not surprising that she says

she still thinks in shorthand sometimes

Then:

12 pence = 1 shilling

20 shillings = £ 1 OO Now:

5p = 1 old shilling loop = £1.00

Fresh from the kitchen

UNTIL RECLYTLY, the only time I ever ate bean sprouts was in Chinese restaurants

- or, occasionally, when I bought some from a supermarket Then I read something in

a newspaper about how to grow them, and I decided to try it

It was actually very easy The only diflicult thing, for me, was remembering to rinse them regularly You don't have to do this often - but I still forgot sometimes (and then remembered in bed!) In fact you can grow them in the kitchen at any time of year You just 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 also grow lots of different bean sprouts; try any dried bean, pea or seed you n o m d y use

in cooking - but remember they must not be broken or too old

Bean sprouts

If you like £resh peas and salads you'll like bean sprouts All bean sprouts have some protein Like oranges and lemons, they have lots of Vihnin C, and they have other important vitamins and minerals too

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

Mung bean sprouts 20

Soya bean sprouts 48

How to grow bean sprouts

The best lengths for bean sprouts are:

cm time taken (days)

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

raw - in salads and sandwiches, mixed with mayonnaise to put in tomatoes or eggs, in

cold soups and drinks

cooked - in soups, omelettes, in sauces for pasta

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

1 large onion, sliced

3 stalks celery, sliced

1 tablespoon cooking oil

1 X 225 g/8 oz can tomatoes and juice

225 g/8 ox bean sprouts (soya, black eye, short mung bean, adzuki or lentils)

'A, teaspoon marjoram Pinch rosemary Salt and freshly ground black pepper

G e n t l y fry t h e onion a n d celery in t h e cooking oil for &5 minutes t o soften A d d all t h e remaining

, , I m

ingredients a n d bring t o t h e boil s i m m e r , uncovered

2

(from Spyouting Beans and Seeds by Judy Ridgway)

tomatoes

Other things that people mentioned were: noisy lifts

dripping taps in bathrooms

people who slam doors

noisy office machines

Names: Mme A Meilland (France), Gloria Dei (Gemany), Gioia (Italy), Peace (America)

favourite flower, and if they all said, 'Roses',

would you be surprised? Perhaps not; after all,

they are probably the most popular flower in the

world That's why rose-growers are always try-

ing to create new roses

To do this you need to grow hundreds of new

plants; it takes a lot of time, of course, and alot

of work You also need a lot of luck: of those hun- dreds of plants, only a few (or very often none) will produce a good new rose Yet today there are thousands of varieties of rose, all with different names, and every rose-grower hopes that he or she will one day add a popular new variety to the list

One day in 1935, in Tassin near Lyons in

France, rose-growers Franqois Meilland and his They also thought about a name for 3-35-40

another to a rose-grower in Germany Then, in

'Peace' rose-bushes were flowering all over the 'I'm about to leave If you like I can take a small world; and Francis [Fransois] wrote in his diary:

seed .'

hard growing vegetables - and a few roses They (from For Love of a Rose by Antonia Ridge)

often thought about their parcels: had they

arrived in Germany, in Italy? Were the roses

growing? Did that last plane get to America

safely?

From the clouds

"When shall we three meet again

in thunder, lightning or in rain?"

(from Macbeth by William Shakespeare)

Thunder and lightning

Lightning can travel half as fast as light The air it travels through can get as hot as 30,000" C (five times hotter than the surface of the sun); when this hot air expands, we hear thunder

You can tell how far away lightning is if you count the seconds between the lightning and the thunder Sound travels about a kilometre in three seconds So if there's thunder six seconds after lightning, the lightning is two kilometres away

We say that 'Lightning never strikes twice in the same place' but it isn't true; places

- and 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 July

1969 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 Facts

and Feats by Ingrid Holford)

The snow photographer

These photographs of snow seen through a microscope were taken by an American farmer called W.A.&ntley - the first person ever to photograph snow crystals, In

1895, aged 20, he began to take photos of snow crystals through a microscope When

he died in 1931, he had 6,000 photos of snow crystals - each one different

Usually hailstones are about 5-50 mm in diameter, but on 27 May 1959 in Delhi, India, hailstones that were 200 mm and more made holes 25&375 mrn in diameter in a plane But stranger things than that have happened:

At Dubuque, Iowa,, USA ;on- 16-

June 1882, hailstones up to -5 in

(125 mni),in diameter fell during

a 13 minute storm, and in' two

stones small living frogs were

found

(from The Guinwss Book of Weather Facts

and Feats by Ingrid Holford)