Unit 6 I Lesson 6:

Reading skill

Facts and opinions

1. Read these paragraphs and answer the questions which follow. Choose the correct letter A, B or C.

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Why is the former boxer Muhammad Ali still considered a legend?

Although Muhammad Ali was responsible for many legendary moments in the boxing ring, there was much more to this man’s appeal. Not only was he a successful athlete, but he was also well known for his strong work ethic and fearless approach to standing up for his beliefs.

Born as Cassius Clay in 1942, Muhammad Ali began training at just 12 years old and, at the age of 22, won the world heavyweight championship in 1964. It was a title he went on to win again, in 1974 and 1978. He referred to himself as ‘The Greatest’, and was famous for boasting about his ability to ‘float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.

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Approaching the question

2. Complete the flow-chart showing one approach with words from the box.

Practice

3. Use this approach to answer questions about the text. Choose TWO letters, A-D.

Use this approach to answer questions about the text. Choose TWO letters, A-D.

Serena Williams has dominated women’s professional tennis since the late 1990s, when she and her sister, Venus, became global tennis superstars. Serena in particular has become known for her determination, powerful game and unique fashion sense.

Serena was born on 26 September 1981 in Saginaw, Michigan. When she was just a baby, her family moved to California, and it was there she started playing tennis at the age of four. She was coached by her father, Richard Williams, until she was 12. Although Mr Williams was determined that his daughters would succeed in the tennis world, he was also focused on giving them a good education. In fact, whilst they were training to be tennis stars, he also took responsibility for their home-schooling.

Serena is so successful on the tennis court because of her rapid movement, speed of thought and powerful shots. Indeed, whilst she was playing a match in the 2013 Australian Open, Serena hit a serve* at a speed of just under 207 km per hour, the third fastest recorded among female players. This powerful serve helps put her opponents under pressure from the very start of the game.

During her career, she has won 56 singles championships, 22 doubles championships and was also a gold medalist a: the 2000, 2008 and 2012 Olympics.

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Global understanding

4. In this Part, you will do an IELTS Reading multiple-choice task. 

Read the information. Then skim read the paragraph. Choose the best summary.

A history of ice cream

Although many people might consider ice cream a recent invention, dependent on refrigeration technology and the dairy industry, there have been certain people eating frozen desserts made by mixing ice with fruit flavours for thousands of years. We don’t know when people started doing this, but we do know that Roman and Chinese emperors used to eat fruit mixed with snow as far back as 2,000 years ago. However, most fruit grows in the warmer months, and ice needed to be transported from distant mountain tops, or collected in winter and stored in very expensive underground chambers. This meant that it was available only to the people at the very top of society, and only on special occasions.

Not until relatively recently – the 1600s – did people begin mixing milk or cream with ice to create what people today might recognise as ice cream. Ice cream desserts began to appear in expensive cafés in Paris, and then in New York in the 1700s. In England, recipes for making your own ice cream began to be published in the early 1700s. Indeed, the word ice cream appeared for the first time in a dictionary in 1744. This all meant that ordinary people might have heard about ice cream and understood what a frozen dessert was, even if they couldn’t afford to buy one themselves.

In the 1700s, ice cream started to become popular in the USA. Adverts began to appear in newspapers for a growing number of specialist ice-cream shops, which made and sold their own frozen desserts. As before, however, ice cream was only affordable for society’s elite. The first American president, George Washington, was known to enjoy ice cream. He spent an incredible $200 on ice cream in just one year – the equivalent of at least $5,000 in today’s money.

In the 1700s, ice cream started to become popular in the USA. Adverts began to appear in newspapers for a growing number of specialist ice-cream shops, which made and sold their own frozen desserts. As before, however, ice cream was only affordable for society’s elite. The first American president, George Washington, was known to enjoy ice cream. He spent an incredible $200 on ice cream in just one year – the equivalent of at least $5,000 in today’s money.

1. The main point of the paragraph 1 is that
A.
B.
C.
D.
2. Which parts of the paragraph give this main idea? Choose the three correct options.
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.

3. Which idea best summarises the writer’s main point in the paragraph 2?

A.
B.
C.
D.

4. When the writer discusses the first ice-cream shops in the USA in paragraph 3, he or she is surprised that

A.
B.
C.
D.

5. Option A is wrong. The writer doesn’t give any opinion about the of ice-cream shops. He or she only mentions that the quantity of shops was .

6. Option B is correct. The word means ‘impossible or very difficult to believe’. The writer is adding a comment to a fact, to say how surprising it was that someone spent such a large amount of money on something such as .

7. Option C is wrong. The writer doesn’t give any opinion about how expensive ice cream was. He or she just mentions that it was only for the richest people in society – the .

8. Option D is wrong. The writer talks about the first , and says that he used to ice cream, but the writer presents this as a fact. He or she doesn’t express any surprise.

9. Which of the following statements best summarises the writer’s main point in the paragraph 4?

A.
B.
C.
D.

 

5. Using all the skills you have learnt in this lesson, read the text and complete the multiple-choice task which follows.

5. Using all the skills you have learnt in this lesson, read the text and complete the multiple-choice task which follows.

A brief history of football

There is no clear evidence stating where and when football was a dually invented, but most historians agree that some type of ball game had been played centuries before the modern game developed in England. Football has a long and interesting history and origins of the game are present in sports played thousands of years ago in China, Egypt, Japan and Greece. Aspects of the game can be traced as early as the second and third centuries BC in China. Their game, originally names ‘Tsu Chu’, involved kicking a leather ball into a small hole.

The first football games played in Britain were in the 700sand the English equivalent of a football was made using an animal bladder. Games were violent and injury and death were common. Despite the violence, however, they were still very popular. The game had become so popular that in the 1300s Edward II banned the sport because people were playing football rather than practising archery. This was especially important to this king, as he was preparing to go to war with Scotland. This was to be the first of many bans imposed by the kings and queens of England.

In 1605 football became legal and once again the sport grew in popularity.

In the 1800s it became particularly common in private schools such as Eton, and it was only then that a set of rules was established. Until then, the game had continued to be violent, as it had had limited rules and no referees. Before the 1800s, for example, it was considered normal to hit players on the opposite team and to damage their possessions. In 1848, on Parker’s Piece in Cambridge, these rules were developed further and a new version called the ‘Cambridge Rules’ was used by all schools, colleges and universities.

Though football could be considered a male sport, women also play it.

An increase in women playing the sport began during the First World War, when women did jobs traditionally done by men. Those working in places like factories regularly met to play. Unfortunately, a ban was imposed when the war ended, but it was eventually lifted in the UK in 1971. In 1991 China hosted the first Women’s World Cup the ban was lifted in 1971. In 1991 China hosted the first Women’s World Cup and in 1996 the first ever women’s football event was held at the Olympics.

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Exam skill

6. Read headings i-ix below and underline the key ideas. An example (VIII) has been done for you.

1. Read headings i-ix below and underline the key ideas. An example (VIII) has been done for you.

Today, many governments are promoting organic or natural farming methods that avoid the use of pesticides and other artificial products. The aim is to show that they care about the environment and about people’s health. But is this the right approach?

A. Europe is now the biggest market for organic food in the world, expanding by 25 percent a year over the i* past 10 years. So what is the attraction of organic food for some people? The really important thing is that organic sounds more natural’. Eating organic is a way of defining oneself as natural, good, caring, different from the junk-food-scoffing masses. As one journalist puts it: ‘It feels closer to the source, the beginning, the start of things.’ The real desire is to be somehow close to the soil, to Mother Nature.

B. Unlike conventional farming, the organic approach means farming with natural, rather than man-made, fertilisers and pesticides. Techniques such as crop rotation improve soil quality and help organic farmers compensate for the absence of man-made chemicals. As a method of food production, organic is, however, inefficient in its use of labour and land; there are severe limits to how much food can be produced. Also, the environmental benefits of not using artificial fertiliser are tiny compared with the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by transporting food (a great deal of Britain’s organic produce is shipped in from other countries and transported from shop to home by car).

C. Organic farming is often claimed to be safer than conventional farming – for the environment and for consumers. Yet studies into organic farming worldwide continue to reject this claim. An extensive review by the UK Food Standards Agency found that there was no statistically significant difference between organic and conventional crops. Even where results indicated there was evidence of a difference, the reviewers found no sign that these differences would have any noticeable effect on health.

D. The simplistic claim that organic food is more nutritious than conventional food was always likely to be misleading. Food is a natural product, and the health value of different foods will vary for a number of reasons, including freshness, the way the food is cooked, the type of soil it is grown in, the amount of sunlight and rain crops have received, and so on. Likewise, the flavour of a carrot has less to do with whether it was fertilised with manure or something out of a plastic sack than with the variety of carrot and how long ago it was dug up. The differences created by these things are likely to be greater than any differences brought about by using an organic or non- organic system of production. Indeed, even some ‘organic’ farms are quite different from one another.

E. The notion that organic food is safer than ‘normal’ food is also contradicted by the fact that many of our most common foods are full of natural toxins. Parsnips cause blisters on the skin of agricultural workers. Toasting bread creates carcinogens. As one research expert says: People think that the more natural something is, the better it is for them. That is simply not the case. In fact, it is the opposite that is true: the closer a plant is to its natural state, the more likely it is that it will poison you. Naturally, many plants do not want to be eaten, so we have spent 10,000 years developing agriculture and breeding out harmful traits from crops.’

F. Yet educated Europeans are more scared of eating traces of a few, strictly regulated, man-made chemicals than they are of eating the ones that nature created directly. Surrounded by plentiful food, it’s not nature they worry about, but technology Our obsessions with the ethics and safety of what we eat – concerns about antibiotics in animals, additives in food, GM crops and so on – are symptomatic of a highly technological society that has little faith in its ability to use this technology wisely. In this context, the less something is touched by the human hand, the healthier people assume it must be.

G. Ultimately, the organic farming movement is an expensive luxury for shoppers in well-manicured Europe. For developing parts of the world, it is irrelevant. To European environmentalists, the fact that organic methods require more labour and land than conventional ones to get the same yields is a good thing; to a farmer in rural Africa, it is a disaster. Here, land tends to be so starved and crop yields so low that there simply is not enough organic matter to put back into the soil. Perhaps the focus should be on helping these countries to gain access to the most advanced farming techniques, rather than going back to basics.

Questions 1-7

The reading passage lias seven paragraphs, A-G. Choose’ the correct heading for paragraphs B-G from the list of headings below.

List of Headings
I. Research into whether organic food is better for us
II. Adding up the cost of organic food
III. The factors that can affect food quality
IV. The rich and poor see things differently
V. A description of organic farming
VI. Testing the taste of organic food
VII. Fear of science has created the organic trend
VIII. The main reason for the popularity of organic food
IX. The need to remove hidden dangers from food

1.   Paragraph A. _VIII__

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Homework

The file attached is for copying only. Please create your own file. DO NOT write anything in the file attached as other participant will be using it as well.

Extra reading (optional)

Read headings i-ix below and underline the key ideas. An example (VIII) has been done for you.

Read the text carefully and answer Questions 1-13.

A. Most of us tend not to think about what we eat. Sure, we might have our favourite recipes, or worry about whether our food has been sprayed with pesticides, but the processes and discoveries that have gone into its production remain a closed book Some, however, think differently. Why, they wonder, is frozen milk yellow? Why does your mouth burn for longer when you eat chillies than when you eat mustard? And what would happen if you threw yourself into a swimming pool full of jelly?

B. It was for such people that New Scientist developed its ‘Last Word’ column, in which readers pose – and answer – questions on all manner of abstruse scientific issues, as they relate to everyday life. Many of the issues raised have simple answers. For the questions above, they would be: the riboflavin in milk begins to crystallise; it depends on your taste – the relevant chemical in mustard is more easily washed away by your saliva; and. you’d float, but don’t dive in headfirst!

C. Other questions allow us to explore issues that are relevant to everyone. For example, what’s the difference between sell-by dates and use-by dates? You might expect the answer to involve overcautious health and safety regulation. But it’s more complex than that. The shelf life of food is actually determined by its manufacturers, although lab tests and government guidelines also come into play. Food is tested periodically, at various temperatures, to check the level of bacterial spoilage over a few hours or days – the wanner it is. the more likely your prawn sandwich is to make you ill. After the lab tests, producers set a use-by date or a best-before date. Fresh shellfish need to be consumed by their use-by date (the date by which you must eat them). But tinned beans will probably last long beyond their best-before date (the date by which it’s best to eat them), although they might not taste as good as they once did.

D. The same research explains why even bottled mineral water, which had previously lain underground for decades, needs a best-before date. The problem isn’t the water, but the bottling process: either bacteria can be introduced that multiply and, over time, contaminate the water, or unpleasant chemicals, such as antimony, leach into the water from the plastic bottles.

E. Sometimes, this kind of scientific study takes us to some strange places. For example, we now know that the amount of oxygen in the air inside green peppers is higher than in red (by a whopping 1.23 percent), probably due to the different rate at which green peppers photosynthesise. The relevance of this research is that green peppers will decay faster than red if kept in sunlight: higher oxygen levels provide more resources to feed any bacteria that are present. Generally, cooler environments preserve food best – apart from tropical fruit. Banana skins, for example, have evolved to survive in warm conditions, because that is where they grow best. Anything below 13.3°C damages the membranes, releasing enzymes which lead to skin blackening. To avoid a mushy banana, keep it away from the chiller.

F. It is not just fears for our health that keep food scientists busy. They are also involved in other areas. Their precision has. for example, also been applied to bottles – in particular, to the discovery that the optimum number of sharp pointy bits on a bottle cap is 21. Go on. count them. Years of trial and error led to the internationally accepted German standard DIN 6099, which ensures that almost every bottle cap is the same. This is because 21 is the ideal number when you take into account the circumference of the cap. the likelihood of its metal splitting, and the chances of it sticking in the capping machine. So, next time you open a bottle with a cap on it, pay homage to those who bothered to find out. starting with William Painter, in 1892.

G. Of course, some researchers do care about the more serious stuff, driven by fear of the future and an ever- increasing population on a warming, land-impoverished planet. Sadly, New Scientist’s correspondents concluded that there was no one foodstuff that could feed the world on its own. However, they did come up with a menu that could feed a family of four for 365 days a year, using only eight square metres of land. Rotating crops (so that the soil didn’t lose one nutrient more than any other) would be vital, as would ploughing back dead plant matter and maintaining a vegetarian diet. After that, you would need to grow crops that take up very little space and grow vertically rather than horizontally, if possible.G

Questions 1-7

The reading passage lias seven paragraphs, A-G. Choose’ the correct heading for paragraphs B-G from the list of headings below.

List of Headings
I. Why a particular piece of information is given
II. An unsolved problem and a solution to a problem
III. Reasons that remain a mystery
IV. Development work leading to a conclusion
V. Development work leading to a conclusion
VI. Contrasting levels of interest in food
VII. The need to change a system
VIII. Information connected with keeping certain kinds of food
IX. How certain advice is decided on
X. Ideas not put into practice

1.   Paragraph A. _VII__

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