Learning Packet 2 International English Language Reading
Learning Packet 2 International English Language Reading
UNIT 2: READING
2.1. Introduction
Hello, learner! How was your journey to the world of sound and the art of
waves? I am sure you enjoyed it and you did pretty well! Listening is a skill you
crucially need to win over life’s hurdles towards success. As early as now, I
congratulate you for successfully finishing the Unit 1!
This time, brace yourself and get ready as we get a round-trip ticket around
the world through the best replacement to travel, READING!
Reading encompasses a variety of skills that can permeate all aspects of life.
Having strong reading abilities can enable you to interpret and find meaning in
everything you read, simply put, reading does the trick!
Most of us read in everyday life for different purposes – you are reading
this page now, for a purpose. When you read while studying an academic course,
your principal goal will be to gather information in order to answer an
assignment question or gain further information on a subject for an exam or
other type of assessment. However, we have to read to make sense of the things
around us, develop the mind, land on a good job, and function on today’s society.
There is an old saying, "The pen is mightier than the sword." Ideas written
down have changed the destiny of men and nations for better or worse. Only by
reading can we be armed in this never-ending, life-and-death struggle. The
question is, are you now ready to welcome your ‘destination’ with hope that
victory is at hand because of reading? If yes, join me acquire the skills in reading!
1.2 Topics/Discussion
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1.2.1 Skimming
The world is too busy right now and where you spend most of your time matters.
The millenials or gen-Z usually prefer instants. Because they are always in a hurry, they’d
rather eat sandwich on the way rather than stay at the dining table for a while. Admit it or
not, you belong to this generation, and maybe, you are one of these on-a-hurry pals.
Remember the last time you held a newspaper. You didn’t get into the word-by-
word kind of reading, instead, you quickly took the general news of the day. Am I
guessing it right? When reading a magazine, you browse
All along, you’ve been applying one skill in reading, and that is, skimming.
Skimming is a method of rapidly moving the eyes over text with the purpose of
getting only the main ideas and a general overview of the content. You skim a text to
obtain the gist – the overall sense – of a piece of writing. This can help you decide whether
to read it more slowly and in more detail.
When you use the skimming technique you don’t read the whole text word for
word. You should use as many clues as possible to give you some background
information. There might be pictures or images related to the topic, or an eye-catching
title. Let your eyes skim over the surface of the text and look out for key words while
thinking about any clues you’ve found about the subject.
Find a novel and go to its preface. Set a 3-minute timer and read the first 4
paragraphs. When the time’s up, recall what you have read and see if you’ll be able to
state the main idea of each paragraph.
Tip:
Mastering the art of skimming effectively requires that you use it as frequently as
possible.
1.2.2 Scanning
Imagine yourself watching your favorite Netflix series and you heard your favorite
character say a word which is completely unknown to you. Luckily, you have a pocket-
size dictionary under your sofa table, and you immediately browsed it to find the word
you’ve just heard.
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If you did this even once in your life, then you have experienced how to scan.
Scanning rapidly covers a great deal of material in order to locate a specific fact
or piece of information. It is very useful for finding a specific name, date, statistic, or fact
without reading the entire article.
You scan a text to obtain specific information. For example, to find a particular
number in a telephone directory. In scanning, you must be willing to skip over large
sections of text without reading or understanding them.
Here’s what’s surprising: scanning can be done at 1500 or more words per
minute!
Practise scanning on text:
Get a Bible and go to the Book of Psalms 91. Highlight all the “LORD” word and
give the accurate number of this word found on that chapter. (Answer is: 24)
Tip:
Speed reading is one of the best skills you can learn to acquire. Learning to read
faster will enable you to consume more information than ever before. A fater reading
speed will help you save a ton of time. If you’re a student, you’ll find it easier to keep
up with your textbooks and you’ll get better grades.
Your reading speed is measured in words per minute (WPM). To find out your
reading speed, you are simply going to read for one minute and then figure out how
many words were read.
If your reading speed was somewhere between 150 = 250 words per minute, then
you are reading at average speed. Our goal is simply to move this range higher not
only to improve speed, but also comprehension and retention.
With just a little bit of practice, you can start reading faster in just a few minutes.
You may use these drills to make your first improvement in your reading rate:
1. Use your hand to read faster – Our eyes are naturally attracted to motion.
Take advantage of this and use it to speed up your reading rate.
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2. Practice speed drills – You read for a certain period of time, let’s say 10
minutes. You then try to re-read that same material in less time.
Read at regular pace.
Re-read to the same spot in 7 minutes.
Re-read to the same spot in 6 minutes.
Re-read to the same spot in 5 minutes.
Re-read to the same spot in 4 minutes.
3. Read faster with comprehension – After completing the first speed drill,
it’s time to re-test the regular reading speed but you have to make sure
that you allow to get comprehension.
Get a book. Follow the drills above and compare you reading rate before and
after the drills.
Tip:
If you want to read faster, you must change the way you currently read.
1.2.4 Paraphrasing
Imagine yourself going to Senior’s Night and you’re all ready because tomorrow is
the moment you’ve been waiting for your whole college life. However, your friend posted
on Facebook her ball gown and it looks exactly the same as yours. What a surprise!
Instead of wreaking havoc, you decided to flaunt your creativity by recreating your gown.
On the night of the party, you walked onstage to get your award as Best Dressed.
Well, things like this happens to us once or twice in our life, but not totally in the
same situation. However, this is how the importance of paraphrasing looks like.
We make a new different concept out of the original, but with the same meaning.
However, because of paraphrasing, it becomes somehow new or original.
Paraphrasing is taking someone else’s words and putting them into your
own words—but without changing the original meaning. The original text might
be an idea, opinion, fact, or research data. No matter what you borrow and put in
your own words, you must cite it and use new wording.
Paraphrasing is not the same as quoting. When you quote, you repeat the
author’s exact words, and you show this by putting them in quotation marks.
When you paraphrase, on the other hand, you use your own words to talk about
the author’s idea, and you don’t use quotation marks. But, no matter whether
you’re quoting or paraphrasing, you always need to cite the source.
How about try this practice on paraphrasing texts:
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Paraphrase this: “Romeo and Juliet is not only the tale of two young,
doomed lovers; it is the story of how youth can be destroyed when the banality of
adulthood is imminent” (Smith 76).
Tip:
1. Read the original passage several times until you feel you fully understand it.
2. Imagine how you would explain this passage verbally to someone who had not
read it.
3. Put the passage aside and write/type it in your own words
A. Potential leaders
B. Open to new ideas
C. Good at teamwork
What is your answer based on the keywords? Why is that so?
Tip:
Read the first question and underline "keywords". These are the words that you
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think you will need to search for in the passage. They are the words that
communicate the meaning of the question: normally nouns, verbs and adjectives.
The invention of rockets is linked inextricably with the invention of 'black powder'. Most historians of
technology credit the Chinese with its discovery. They base their belief on studies of Chinese writings or on the
notebooks of early Europeans who settled in or made long visits to China to study its history and civilisation. It is
probable that, some time in the tenth century, black powder was first compounded from its basic ingredients of
saltpetre, charcoal and sulphur. But this does not mean that it was immediately used to propel rockets. By the
thirteenth century, powderpropelled fire arrows had become rather common. The Chinese relied on this type of
technological development to produce incendiary projectiles of many sorts, explosive grenades and possibly cannons
to repel their enemies. One such weapon was the 'basket of fire' or, as directly translated from Chinese, the 'arrows
like flying leopards'. The 0.7 metre-long arrows, each with a long tube of gunpowder attached near the point of each
arrow, could be fired from a long, octagonal-shaped basket at the same time and had a range of 400 paces. Another
weapon was the 'arrow as a flying sabre', which could be fired from crossbows. The rocket, placed in a similar position
to other rocket-propelled arrows, was designed to increase the range. A small iron weight was attached to the 1.5m
bamboo shaft, just below the feathers, to increase the arrow's stability by moving the centre of gravity to a position
below the rocket. At a similar time, the Arabs had developed the 'egg which moves and burns'. This 'egg' was
apparently full of gunpowder and stabilised by a 1.5m tail. It was fired using two rockets attached to either side of this
tail.
It was not until the eighteenth century that Europe became seriously interested in the possibilities of using
the rocket itself as a weapon of war and not just to propel other weapons. Prior to this, rockets were used only in
pyrotechnic displays. The incentive for the more aggressive use of rockets came not from within the European
continent but from far-away India, whose leaders had built up a corps of rocketeers and used rockets successfully
against the British in the late eighteenth century. The Indian rockets used against the British were described by a
British Captain serving in India as ‘an iron envelope about 200 millimetres long and 40 millimetres in diameter with
sharp points at the top and a 3m-long bamboo guiding stick’. In the early nineteenth century the British began to
experiment with incendiary barrage rockets. The British rocket differed from the Indian version in that it was
completely encased in a stout, iron cylinder, terminating in a conical head, measuring one metre in diameter and
having a stick almost five metres long and constructed in such a way that it could be firmly attached to the body of the
rocket. The Americans developed a rocket, complete with its own launcher, to use against the Mexicans in the mid-
nineteenth century. A long cylindrical tube was propped up by two sticks and fastened to the top of the launcher,
thereby allowing the rockets to be inserted and lit from the other end. However, the results were sometimes not that
impressive as the behaviour of the rockets in flight was less than predictable.
Write the correct letter A-E in boxes 1-4 on your answer sheet.
You may use any letter more than once.
1. black powder
2. rocket-propelled arrows for fighting
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Introducing dung1 beetles into a pasture is a simple process: approximately 1,500 beetles are released, a
handful at a time, into fresh cow pats2 in the cow pasture. The beetles immediately disappear beneath the
pats digging and tunnelling and, if they successfully adapt to their new environment, soon become a
permanent, self-sustaining part of the local ecology. In time they multiply and within three or four years the
benefits to the pasture are obvious.
Dung beetles work from the inside of the pat so they are sheltered from predators such as birds and foxes.
Most species burrow into the soil and bury dung in tunnels directly underneath the pats, which are hollowed
out from within. Some large species originating from France excavate tunnels to a depth of approximately
30 cm below the dung pat. These beetles make sausage-shaped brood chambers along the tunnels. The
shallowest tunnels belong to a much smaller Spanish species that buries dung in chambers that hang like
fruit from the branches of a pear tree. South African beetles dig narrow tunnels of approximately 20 cm
below the surface of the pat. Some surface-dwelling beetles, including a South African species, cut
perfectly-shaped balls from the pat, which are rolled away and attached to the bases of plants.
For maximum dung burial in spring, summer and autumn, farmers require a variety of species with
overlapping periods of activity. In the cooler environments of the state of Victoria, the large French species
(2.5 cms long), is matched with smaller (half this size), temperate-climate Spanish species. The former are
slow to recover from the winter cold and produce only one or two generations of offspring from late spring
until autumn. The latter, which multiply rapidly in early spring, produce two to five generations annually.
The South African ball-rolling species, being a sub-tropical beetle, prefers the climate of northern and coastal
New South Wales where it commonly works with the South African tunneling species. In warmer climates,
many species are active for longer periods of the year.
11. Marie Curie’s husband was a joint winner of both Marie’s Nobel Prizes.
12. Marie became interested in science when she was a child.
13. Marie was able to attend the Sorbonne because of her sister’s financial contribution.
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The general assumption is that older workers are paid more in spite of, rather than
because of, their productivity. That might partly explain why, when employers are under
pressure to cut costs, they persuade a 55-year old to take early retirement. Take away
seniority-based pay scales, and older workers may become a much more attractive
employment proposition. But most employers and many workers are uncomfortable with
the idea of reducing someone’s pay in later life – although manual workers on piece-rates
often earn less as they get older. So retaining the services of older workers may mean
employing them in different ways.
One innovation was devised by IBM Belgium. Faced with the need to cut staff costs, and
having decided to concentrate cuts on 55 to 60-year olds, IBM set up a separate company
called Skill Team, which re-employed any of the early retired who wanted to go on
working up to the age of 60. An employee who joined Skill Team at the age of 55 on a five-
year contract would work for 58% of his time, over the full period, for 88% of his last IBM
salary. The company offered services to IBM, thus allowing it to retain access to some of
the intellectual capital it would otherwise have lost.
The best way to tempt the old to go on working may be to build on such ‘bridge’ jobs:
parttime or temporary employment that creates a more gradual transition from full-time
work to retirement. Studies have found that, in the United States, nearly half of all men
and women who had been in full-time jobs in middle age moved into such ‘bridge’ jobs at
the end of their working lives. In general, it is the best-paid and worst-paid who carry on
working. There seem to be two very different types of bridge job-holder – those who
continue working because they have to and those who continue working because they
want to, even though they could afford to retire.
If the job market grows more flexible, the old may find more jobs that suit them. Often,
they will be self-employed. Sometimes, they may start their own businesses: a study by
David Storey of Warwick University found that in Britain 70% of businesses started by
people over 55 survived, compared with an overall national average of only 19%. But
whatever pattern of employment they choose, in the coming years the skills of these ‘grey
workers’ will have to be increasingly acknowledged and rewarded.
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(Questions 14-17)
The science of evolutionary relationships has undergone a major change in recent decades. It used
to be the case that all the features of organisms were important in working out their family tree.
But following the work of German entomologist Willi Hennig, many evolutionary scientists now
believe that the only features which carry any useful information are the evolutionary ‘novelties’
shared between organisms. Mice, lizards and fish, for example, all have backbones – so the feature
‘backbone’ tells us nothing about their evolutionary relationship. But the feature ‘four legs’ is
useful because it’s an evolutionary novelty – a characteristic shared only between the lizard and
the mouse. This would suggest that the lizard and mouse are more closely related to each other
than either is to the fish. This revolutionary approach is called cladistics, and it has been central to
the idea that birds evolved from dinosaurs.
The ‘birds are dinosaurs’ theory was first developed by English palaeontologist Thomas Huxley
(1825–1895). According to some accounts, one evening Huxley went to dinner still thinking about
a mystery dinosaur bone in his lab. He knew he was dealing with the lower leg bone (tibia) of a
meat-eating, two-legged dinosaur belonging to the classification known as theropods, but
attached to the tibia was an unidentified extra bone. On the menu that evening was quail, a small
bird similar to a pheasant, and Huxley noticed the same strange bone, attached to the quail tibia
on his plate. He later realised that it was in fact the bird’s anklebone. More importantly, Huxley
concluded that its forms in both dinosaur and bird skeletons were so similar that they must be
closely related.
Huxley’s idea fell out of favour for fifty years following the 1916 publication of The Origin of Birds
by the Danish doctor Gerhard Heilmann. During this time, Heilmann’s theory was widely accepted.
Heilmann had noted that two-legged, meat-eating dinosaurs lacked collarbones. In later
evolutionary stages these bones fuse together to form the distinctive ‘Y’shaped bone in a bird’s
neck, known as the furcula. Heilmann proposed the notion that such a feature could not be lost
and then re-evolve at a later date, so dinosaurs could not be the ancestors of birds.
Then, in the late 1960s, John Ostrom from Yale University in the US, noted 22 features in the
skeletons of meat-eating dinosaurs that were also found in birds and nowhere else. This reset the
thinking on bird ancestry and once again Huxley’s ideas caught the attention of the scientific
community. Subsequent work has found up to 85 characteristics that tie dinosaurs and birds
together. But what of Heilmann’s missing bones? It turns out that not only did many dinosaurs
have collarbones, these were also fused together into a furcula. Unfortunately for Heilmann, the
fossil evidence was somewhat lacking in his day, and the few furculae that had been found were
misidentified, usually as belly ribs.
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US ornithologist Alan Feduccia and palaeontologist Larry Martin are two vocal opponents of the
dinosaur theory. They contend that birds evolved from some unknown reptile at a time long before
dinosaurs. Their reasoning is that flight is most likely to have started from a treeclimbing ancestor, yet
all the proposed dinosaurian ancestors were ground-dwellers. But the dino-bird supporters contend
that an unknown dinosaurian bird-ancestor could have been tree-dwelling, or that birds evolved flight
from the ground up by chasing and leaping after insects. Most of Feduccia and Martin’s case against the
‘birds-are-dinosaurs’ hypothesis is based on differences between birds and dinosaurs. Supporters of
cladistics, however, maintain that differences between organisms do not matter, as it is the similarities
between them that count. Evolution dictates that organisms will change through time, so it is only the
features which persist that carry useful information about their origins.
Most people on either side of the debate do accept, however, that the ancient winged creature known
as Archaeopteryx is an ancestor of today’s birds. This is in spite of the fact that its form is distinctly non-
bird-like, with a long bony tail, and teeth instead of a beak. The ‘birdsare-dinosaurs’ supporters contend
that, if clearly-preserved feathers had not been found alongside two of the seven Archaeopteryx
specimens, it would probably have been identified as a small dinosaur. However, Archaeopteryx does
have some bird-like features, such as a furcula and bird-like feet, that suggest that it is too bird-like to
be considered a dinosaur.
Over the last few decades several dinosaurs with bird-like features and primitive birds with dinosaur-
like features have been found in several countries, connecting Archaeopteryx back to dinosaurs, and
forwards to modern birds. Sinosauropteryx, excavated from 130-millionyear-old rocks in northeast
China, is one example. It is a dinosaur skeleton surrounded by a halo of fuzz, thought to be primitive
feathers. And a reassessment of other dinosaurs reveals such bird-like features as hollow bones and a
foot with three functional toes, characteristics that appeared over 50 million years before
Archaeopteryx took to the air. And Rahonavis, a primitive bird from Madagascar is more bird-like than
Archaeopteryx, yet retains some distinctive dinosaur features, including a long and vicious claw at the
end of its wing. Over a century since Huxley’s discovery, it seems that cladistics may have finally settled
the ‘dinobird’ debate.
(Questions 18-22)
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
18. Huxley formulated his theory while studying a dinosaur belonging to a group called ________.
19. Heilmann rejected Huxley’s theory because of the apparent absence of __________ in dinosaurs.
20. Feduccia and Martin believe that the ancestor of today’s birds was a kind of early __________.
21. In cladistics, the __________ between organisms’ characteristics are of major importance.
22. The dangerous ___________ on a primitive bird from Madagascar adds weight to the ‘dino-bird’
argument.
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(Items 23-25)
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1 16
2 17
3 18
4 19
5 20
6 21
7 22
8 23
9 24
10 25
11
12
13
14
15
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2.3 References
Jameison, S. (2015). Reading for College [PDF]. Drew University.
https://www.nwmissouri.edu
Reading and Study Skills Lab Anne Arundel Community College. Skimming and
Scanning [PDF]. https://fac.ksu.edu.sa.
Speed Reading Starter Guide [PDF]. (2013). www.iresreading.com
SUNY Potsdam College Writing Center Carson 106. Paraphrasing [PDF].
www.potsdam.edu/cwe
Wechsler and Bell. (2006). Speed Reading for Professionals. Barron’s Educational
Series, Inc. Hauppauge, NY 11788
IELTS Reading – Short Answer Questions [PDF]. www.ieltsadvantage.com
Skimming and Scanning [PDF]. https://www.stetson.edu
Skimming Text – BBC [PDF]. www.teach.files.bbci.co.uk
Keywords for Compare and Contrast [PDF]. https://resources.corwin.com
2.4 Acknowledgment
The images, tables, figures and information contained in this module were
taken from the references cited above.