Chapter 2
Reading
Old
English and Vietnamese Section
English | Vietnamese
IC3, IT, TOEFL, Best Answer
Self- and Teacher Evaluation
Who has the responsibility for protecting and
preserving the earth’s water supply?
Câu hỏi hướng dẫn?
Vietnamese Language Skills:
- Reading Passage: Guessing Words in Context
- New Vocabulary
- Reading with New Vocabulary
Form small groups of three or four people. Read the following paragraph (aloud or silently), then complete the exercises that follow as a group.
Facts and Figures: Water Use
(compiled from http://www.wateryear2003.org)
Water use is increasing everywhere. The world’s six billion people are already using 54% of all the freshwater found in rivers, lakes and underground aquifers. By 2025 humankind’s share will be 70%. This prediction is based on the impact of population growth alone. If humans’ use of water resources continues to rise at its current rate, humankind will be using over 90% of all available freshwater within 25 years. That will leave just 10% for all other living beings—plants and animals.
Discuss the following numbers. Write down in the space provided what the numbers mean. The first one is done for you.
- six billion __ number of people in the world today______________________
- 54% ________________________________________________________
- 2025 _______________________________________________________
- 70% ________________________________________________________
- 90% ________________________________________________________
- 25 years _____________________________________________________
- 10% ________________________________________________________
Look at the following words and phrases. Discuss, then, guess what meaning each word and phrase has. Write the group’s definitions in the space provided.
- freshwater ____________________________________________________
- rivers ________________________________________________________
- lakes ________________________________________________________
- underground aquifers ___________________________________________
- humankind ___________________________________________________
- water resources________________________________________________
- current rate ___________________________________________________
- living beings __________________________________________________
The Facts and Figures paragraph above predicts that water use by humans will be a crisis in 25 years. Are there things that people can do to prevent or ease such a crisis? Discuss in your group what actions can be taken to prevent such a crisis. Select three of your ideas and share them with the rest of the class.
Idea #1 ____________________________________________________________________
Idea #2 ____________________________________________________________________
Idea #3 ____________________________________________________________________
Vocabulary Words & Exercises
Guessing Meaning from Context
New words are found with each new reading. It is not always necessary to use a dictionary for every new word. Instead, you can guess the meaning of a new vocabulary item from its context--the sentence or paragraph in which the new word is found. Most likely, you have already used some of the skills for guessing the meaning of words in context that are listed below when you did the previous exercise.
Sometimes the meaning of a word is clearly explained. The meaning of the word often follows the verb “be.” For example, look at the following sentences:
Clean water and good sanitation facilities are necessary to keep us healthy. Sanitation is a word used to describe systems for taking away dirty water and other waste products from a building, in order to protect our health. Many diseases are caused by dirty water and inadequate sanitation facilities. (from UNICEF: www.therightssite.org.uk/html/issues)
If you did not know the meaning of the word “sanitation,” it is very easy to find a definition for the word without a dictionary. Very clearly we can read that “Sanitation is a word used to describe systems for taking away dirty water. . .”
Another example:
Eventually the drip combines with other drips to form a bigger drop and falls to earth as precipitation . This may be any form of water, such as rain, sleet or snow that falls to the earth's surface.
So “precipitation” is “any form of water, such as rain, sleet or snow that falls to the earth's surface.”
Sometimes the meaning of a new word is after a comma (,).
It evaporates , which means that it rises as a vapor.
Here we can see that “evaporates” means “rises as a vapor.” In this case, it is clearly stated that a definition is being given. We have a comma and then the words, “which means . . .” Other words after the comma may be:
- (comma), thus . . .
- (comma), that is to say . . .
- (comma), such as . . .
Another example:
This may be any form of water, such as rain, sleet or snow that falls to the earth's surface.
Definitions can also be found between commas following a pattern of word + comma + definition + comma.
The ocean , a very large sea, is the best place to begin.
We find that “ocean” is “a very large sea.” The definition is placed between two commas.
Sometimes the meaning of a word is found after a dash (-).
The drip of water will be used again before returning --going back--to the ocean.
When the vapor gets cold, condensation —changing back to liquid—occurs.
We understand that “returning” means “going back.” And “condensation” is when vapor changes “back to liquid.”
And sometimes the definition is found in parentheses ( ).
Humans may pump water from the ground to irrigate (to water) crops.
The drip may flow (move or run smoothly) with the river.
To “irrigate” means, we find, “to water” and to “flow” is moving or running “smoothly.”
Guess the meaning of the underlined words:
1. diarrhea , fluids
What happens if you drink dirty water? Drinking dirty water can make you ill and cause diarrhea. Diarrhea leaves your body dehydrated of necessary fluids (water and moisture in the body). Without such fluids, your body becomes very weak. Something as common as diarrhea is one of the biggest killers of children in developing countries and causes 2.2 million deaths per year.
2. water pollution , sewage , contaminate
Why is water dirty? The main cause of water pollution in developing countries is sewage—waste water—and poor sanitation systems. Lakes and rivers become polluted with sewage and are often the only source of water in the local area. Garbage and chemicals also contaminate the water. People collect water from their local river, lake or canal not knowing how dangerous it is to drink, cook, and clean with it.
3. a tap , a well , jugs and containers , denied
If you haven’t got a tap in your house, how do you collect water? In some countries people have to go to a well (access to underground water source) to collect water. Others depend upon water from nearby lakes and rivers. This may mean walking miles to collect the water using jugs and containers to carry it in. It tends to be women and girls who collect the water which may result in them missing school which means their right to an education is denied. Carrying such heavy loads can also damage children’s growing bodies.
(source: www.therightssite.org.uk)
Explanation of Reading Study Skill A (Academic Reading Skill):
Getting the Main Ideas: Identify the Topic
A paragraph usually tells about one topic. Often the topic sentence (which states the main idea) is the first sentence of the paragraph. The sentences that follow the topic sentence usually give details and examples that support the main idea.
Look at the following paragraph:
No matter who we are, where we are, and what we do, we are all dependent on water. We need it every day, in so many ways. We need it to stay healthy. We need it for growing food, for transportation, irrigation and industry. We need it for animals and plants, for changing colors and seasons. (source: www.wateryear2003.org)
The topic of this paragraph has been underlined. The topic is: “we are all dependent on water.” All the other phrases and sentences in this paragraph support the topic. We may ask, “How are we dependent on water?” and find that the other sentences in the paragraph help to answer that question: we are dependent on water for health, food, transportation, irrigation and industry, and sustaining nature reasons.
Look at this paragraph. Underline the topic.
Despite the importance of water resources in our lives and well-being, we are increasingly disrespectful of them. We abuse them. We waste them. We pollute them, forgetting how essential they are to our very survival. (source: www.wateryear2003.org)
The topic in this paragraph is “we are disrespectful of our water resources.” How are we disrespectful? Four examples are given: abuse, waste, pollute, forget.
Exercises and Activities for Skill A:
Read the following paragraphs. Underline the topic sentence or phrase.
- Rain and snow are key elements in the Earth’s water cycle, which is vital to all life on Earth. Rainfall is the main way that the water in the skies come down to Earth, where it fills our lakes and rivers, recharges the underground aquifers, and provides drinks to plants and animals. (http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/earthrain.html)
- Only a small percentage of water is suitable for humans to drink. Not all of the water in the found and in lakes and rivers is easy to reach or clean enough to drink. Ice caps and glaciers are certainly hard to use for humans, plants, and animals. Some work is being done to take the salt out of ocean water (desalinate the water), but that is an expensive process.
- Poor sanitation leads to many public health problems. If you can’t dispose of human waste properly, it can lead to health problem such as dysentery and cholera. Cholera is a world-wide problem that is caused by unsafe drinking water, poor sanitation, and poor hygiene practice. In order to practice basic hygiene you need to be able to wash your hands and body in safe water. Other common diseases caused by poor sanitation are intestinal worms. (www.therightssite.org.uk/html/issues_cwas7.hm)
- Hint: The topic is not found in the first sentence.
Pumps powered by fuel can move a lot of water. Yet they cost a lot of money to buy and operate. So, many farmers move the water themselves. They put a container on a rope into the water. They pull the container out by hand. Then they carry it to their fields or vegetable gardens. The work is slow and difficult. (http://voaspecial.xiloo.com/scripts/scripts-200111/011113ar_t.html)
Guess the meaning of the underlined words:
- It soaks into the ground and becomes part of ground water called an aquifer .
- There was a water shortage in our country in 1997. This means there wasn’t enough water.
- According to recent comprehensive hydrographic surveys, Vietnam's ground water supply is generally pure and readily consumable – able to be used - at the source.
- According to the Hanoi Water Company, despite having been treated tap water is generally not potable, drinkable, nationwide.
- Water, like air, is a necessity, something needed , of human life.
- Pesticides and planting treatment contaminated water sources and the village’s environment. In addition, animal and human waste polluted the environment.
- More than half of the households in the village already have sanitary facilities . In the near future, every family will be provided with toilets.
- During the dry season, the volume of water in rivers drops allowing seawater to permeate (to pass through the whole of something) and contaminate (make unclean by contact) underground sources in both urban and rural water supplies.
- Because water pressure is so low and the pipes are unsealed and generally badly maintained, the amount of wastage is almost as bad as the amount of contaminants seeping in (passing slowly through small openings.)
Reading :
Before you read answer the following questions:
- In your family’s home, what is the source(s) of water you use for drinking and cooking, bathing, household cleaning and gardening? Some possible answers may be: city tap water, river, well, rain water, bottled water, filtered water, etc.
- Do you have concerns about the cleanliness of water in your home?
- If you have had concerns, how did you become aware of the cleanliness of water? Some possible answers may be: the illness of a friend, relative, or self; appearance of water; learning more about how water becomes polluted, etc.
- What do you do to get clean water?
- What do you do to minimize waste and water pollution?
Read The Year of Fresh Water below. Read without stopping. Do not spend time thinking about the meaning of one word. Read to get a feeling for what the reading passage is about.
The Year of Fresh Water |
|
A |
The United Nations General Assembly has named 2003 as a year for governments to work toward making people more aware of how important it is to manage and protect fresh water resources in a sustainable way. |
B |
Around 75 percent of the earth is covered with water. While this may make it seem like there is an almost unlimited supply of water for us to use, the amount of usable fresh water is actually quite small: around one percent. Some of this available fresh water exists in aquifers, which are underground areas of soil or rock that hold water, or in groundwater, which is held in cracks in bedrock beneath the ground. Other sources of fresh water that humans can use are lakes, rivers, and streams. Water that comes from these sources is called surface water. Most of the rest of the earth’s fresh water that is not available to humans is stored in glaciers, ice caps, or snow on top of mountain ranges. |
C |
The same water that we drink today was around when the Earth was formed billions of years ago. It is continually reused through the water cycle, in which the same drop of water that falls on your head as a raindrop may have been part of the lake that a dinosaur drank out of millions of years ago. |
D |
That same drop of water might also be used for a variety of purposes today. The biggest consumer of fresh water today is agricultural purposes, which account for 42 percent of available fresh water. The production of electricity also uses a lot of water – about 39 percent. Eight percent of water is used for mining and manufacturing. Only 11 percent of fresh water is used in hotels, offices, and homes. |
E |
The water cycle helps to keep the water clean so that living things that use it can stay healthy. However, humans often do things that pollute the water, such as mining and manufacturing or agricultural practices that allow soil to be washed into rivers and streams. Water that has been polluted by human practices and needs to be cleaned again before it is healthy for humans and other living things to use. But who should pay to clean the water? Some people say that ordinary people should have to pay for their clean water, but many conservationists say that industrial and agricultural companies should have to pay to clean the water because they make most of it dirty. Some people think that rich countries should help. |
Question: After a quick read, what is this passage about?
Read the passage again. This time pay more attention to detail. Circle words that give you difficulty. Guess the meaning in context.
Discussion: Answer the question that is asked in the last paragraph of the reading passage:
Who should pay to clean the water?
Exercises and Activities for Skill A:
Write the topic of each of the paragraphs in the reading passage.
Paragraph A _________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
Paragraph B _________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
Paragraph C _________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
Paragraph D _________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
Paragraph E _________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
Explanation of Reading Study Skill B:
Skimming for the Main Ideas
The first time you read the passage, “The Year of Fresh Water,” you were asked to read it quickly without stopping to get a feeling for what the passage was about. Most likely, you skimmed the reading passage.
You now know that a paragraph is usually about one topic. This topic may sometimes be in a topic sentence. It tells the topic and main idea of the paragraph.
For example, if we look at paragraph D:
That same drop of water might also be used for a variety of purposes today. The biggest consumer of fresh water today is agricultural purposes, which account for 42 percent of available fresh water. The production of electricity also uses a lot of water – about 39 percent. Eight percent of water is used for mining and manufacturing. Only 11 percent of fresh water is used in hotels, offices, and homes.
We can quickly see that the topic is probably that “water is used for a variety of purposes today.” And we can guess that the rest of the paragraph will explain what the “variety of purposes” might be.
Finding the topic sentence in paragraph E is harder because it is not in the first sentence of the paragraph:
The water cycle helps to keep the water clean so that living things that use it can stay healthy. However, humans often do things that pollute the water, such as mining and manufacturing or agricultural practices that allow soil to be washed into rivers and streams. Water that has been polluted by human practices needs to be cleaned again before it is healthy for humans and other living things to use. But who should pay to clean the water? Some people say that ordinary people should have to pay for their clean water, but many conservationists say that industrial and agricultural companies should have to pay to clean the water because they make most of it dirty. Some people think that rich countries should help.
Skimming is looking for specific items in a reading passage. We use the skill of skimming to help us read more quickly. First skim a reading passage for the topic. Then read the passage.
Exercises and Activities for Reading Study Skill B (comprehension):
Skim each paragraph to find the topic. Do it as fast as you can.
As you know, Earth is a watery place. When you look at the water around you, you see water in streams, rivers, and lakes. Even though you see a lot of water on the earth’s surface, there is also plenty of water beneath our feet. Of the freshwater on Earth, much more is stored in the ground than is available in lakes and rivers. More than 2,000,000 cubic miles of fresh water is stored in the Earth. Contrast that with the 60,000 cubic miles of water stored as fresh water in lakes, inland seas, and rivers.
Topic: ____________________________________________________________
A river is nothing more than surface water finding its way over land from a higher altitude to a lower altitude, all due to gravity. When rain falls on the land, it either seeps into the ground or becomes runoff, which flows downhill into rivers and lakes, on its journey towards the seas. In most landscapes the land is not perfectly flat—it slopes downhill in some direction.
Topic: _____________________________________________________________
(source: http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/earthwherewater.html)
READING PASSAGE:
Read over this passage and underline any word you do not understand. Look back through other lessons we have studied to find vocabulary that you may have forgotten. For the words you do not understand, see if you can guess their meaning in context.
Tôi là Mai. Tôi mười bảy tuổi. Tôi là học sinh lớp mười hai. Tôi học ở Trường trung học Nguyễn Khuyến. Lớp học của tôi bắt đầu lúc bảy giờ sáng và kết thúc lúc mười một giờ mười lăm. Tôi muốn thi đậu vào Trường đại học An Giang. Tôi muốn trở thành kỹ sư nông nghiệp.
Exercise 1: Could you guess any of the words in context? Do you need more hints? Here are some definitions of words in the above paragraph that you probably do not know. Try to define the rest of the words with these added hints:
Học sinh |
___________________________________________ |
Lớp |
Classroom |
Trường |
School |
Trường trung học |
______________________________________ |
Nguyễn Khuyến |
Famous poet from the late 19th century. |
Bắt đầu |
___________________________________________ |
Lúc |
At |
Giờ |
___________________________________________ |
Sáng |
Morning |
Kết thúc |
___________________________________________ |
Muốn |
Want, Desire |
Thi đậu |
___________________________________________ |
Vào |
In, Into |
Trường đại học |
University |
An Giang |
Province in southern Vietnam |
Trở thành |
___________________________________________ |
Kỹ sư |
Engineer |
Were the added words helpful? Were you able to correctly identify and define the remaining words?
Exercise 2: Read, translate and answer the following questions.
- Mai bao nhiêu tuổi? _____________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
- Cô ấy muốn học môn gì? ________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
- Cô ấy đang học ở đâu? __________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
- Trường trung học của Mai tên gì? _________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
- Mai vào trường lúc mấy giờ sáng?__________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Exercise 3: Read the following passage that incorporates vocabulary from Chapters 2 Listening and Speaking and Writing. There will also be some new vocabulary that you must try to understand in context.
Chị Rachel đã học chuyên ngành tiếng Anh ở Trường Đại học EMU vào năm hai ngàn lẻ bốn. Chị ấy muốn học về môi trường và đã học qua một lớp “Bảo vệ môi trường”. Năm 12 tuổi, chị Rachel đã có dịp đến sông Colorado cùng với gia đình và đã muốn học nhiều hơn về môi trường và sinh thái của sông. Nhưng chị ấy không thể học về môi trường ở Trường Đại học EMU vì trường không có chuyên ngành này.
- Where did Rachel go to college?
- What did she study?
- What did she want to study?
- What was one class she liked a lot? How do you say that in English?
- Where did she go with her family when she was young? How old was she?
- What do you think the word “cuộc sống” means?
- What do you think the combination “không thể” means?
- Finally, what do you think the word, “chuyên ngành” means?
- Try to answer these questions alone and then find a partner and compare answers.
