Lettura e Comprensione della Lingua Inglese Livello Intermedio Libro 5 Stephen Harrison www.eBooksForEnglish.it ~~~ Kindle Edition Copyright © 2014 Stephen Harrison. All rights reserved. 2 Indice Indice Nota dell'autore Come usare questo eBook Agatha Christie Yoga Seagull Invasion Hinduism New Zealand Raccoons Artificial Intelligence What is Beauty? Human Language The Solar System The Playtpus Meteorites Joan of Arc The Olympics Phobias Lettura e Comprensione della Lingua Inglese Livello Intermedio - Libro 6 Altri Titoliore Informazioni sull’Autore Soluzioni Fonti 3 Nota dell'autore Caro lettore, Grazie per aver scaricato il mio eBook! Come insegnante e studente di lingue, riconosco il valore del materiale di alta qualità a un buon prezzo per l'apprendimento delle lingue. Il mio intento è scrivere eBook validi per imparare l'inglese, che non siano troppo costosi. Ho scritto diversi eBook con questo scopo e sono elencati alla fine di questo mio lavoro (e anche su www.eBooksForEnglish.it). Ogni volta che pubblico un nuovo eBook, lo rendo disponibile gratuitamente per i primi giorni. Se volete essere sempre aggiornati sulle offerte gratuite, visitate www.RelevantEnglish.com e registrate il vostro indirizzo e-mail. Infine, spero davvero che questo libro vi piaccia e vi aiuti a migliorare il vostro inglese - che è il mio obiettivo. Se siete soddisfatti, siete pregati di lasciare un commento. Il vostro feedback è importante e mi aiuterà a continuare a produrre eBook efficaci per le vostre esigenze di apprendimento dell' inglese. Grazie! Stephen 4 Come usare questo eBook La serie 'Lettura e Comprensione della Lingua Inglese - Livello Intermedio' è progettata specificamente per aiutare a sviluppare le vostre capacità di comprensione della lingua inglese. Si tratta delle competenze di cui avrete bisogno nella 'vita reale', così come per passare i vari esami di inglese di livello intermedio. Come utilizzare l'eBook lo deciderete voi. Mi spiego : ognuno dei quindici articoli ha un glossario delle parole chiave e una serie di dieci domande. Le risposte alle domande sono accessibili facendo clic sul link, o andando alla fine del libro. Molti studenti trovano utile leggere il glossario prima di leggere il testo. Tuttavia, alcuni principianti iniziano con il testo - non c'è un modo migliore dell’altro. Si può decidere di scrivere le risposte su carta, ma questo non è necessario. Dato che i testi sono brevi, è possibile rispondere alle domande mentalmente. Sforzatevi di non cercare ogni parola sconosciuta utilizzando il dizionario. Cercate, invece, di capire il significato delle parole dal contesto prima di controllarne il significato. Quando controllate le vostre risposte, utilizzate il vostro giudizio per decidere se sono giuste. Ricordate che questa è una esperienza di apprendimento, non un vero e proprio test! I collegamenti video sono per i lettori che vogliono saperne di più sui vari argomenti, non sono legati alle domande. Infine, buon divertimento! Gli articoli riguardano una vasta gamma di argomenti affascinanti e, se non altro, dovrebbero essere una lettura interessante. 5 Agatha Christie Agatha Christie Known in the literary world as the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie is world’s bestselling novelist. Her books have sold an estimated four billion copies and only the bible and Shakespeare have outsold her. Despite dying almost forty years ago, Christie is enduringly popular. She published 66 detective novels and 14 collections of short stories of crime fiction. Her play, ‘The Mousetrap’, is the longest running play in the world. Christie continues to entertain millions of people but her own life was just as interesting as her works of fiction. Agatha Miller (‘Miller’ was Christie’s maiden name) was born in 1819 in Torquay. Agatha was the youngest of three children and her parents were upper-middle class. Their home was an impressive property called Ashfield and the children were brought up with the help of a nanny. In her autobiography, Christie described her childhood as extremely happy and her parents as very loving. Agatha was an extremely bright child, however her mother forbade her to read until she was eight. The reasons for this are unknown but the young Agatha ignored her mother’s strange instructions and secretly taught herself to read. Often very bored, Agatha would invent far-fetched stories to entertain herself, creating imaginary worlds. She would also write poetry as a child and wrote one poem entitled ‘Cowslip’ aged ten. Agatha’s father died when she was eleven years old and she described this event as ‘the end of my childhood’. The family now faced financial problems. In spite of this, Agatha attended finishing school in Paris as a young woman. In 1912 she had five marriage proposals. It was at this time that she met Archie Christie. In 1914, World War One was on the horizon. Agatha (then 24 years old) and Archie decided to marry in secret. Almost straight after the wedding, Archie was sent to fight against the German army in France. During the war, Agatha volunteered as a nurse and later as a pharmacy assistant. It was doing this second job that she learned so much about poison and this knowledge would later help her when writing her books (poison is used as a method of murder in half of Christie’s books). In 1916, Agatha began to write her first crime novel, ‘The Mysterious Affair at Styles’, which featured the famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. She decided to make her famous character Belgian after meeting many refugees who had escaped Belgium during the war. The novel was published in 1920 and was a huge success. Over the next ten years, Christie continued to write successful books but things were about to go wrong. In 1926, her husband Archie asked for a divorce, admitting he was having an affair with another woman. Devastated, Agatha vanished the very next day. The police found her car with her purse and coat but she was gone. There was a huge search, which cost thousands of pounds and 6 wasted a lot of police time. However, Agatha was really hiding at a hotel in Yorkshire. She refused to speak publicly about her disappearance and the couple divorced in 1928. Broken and humiliated, Christie described this time as the worst in her life. However, she decided to leave England and go travelling. In 1928, after her divorce, Agatha took the Orient Express to Bagdad and stopped off in Istanbul. It was during her travels that she met Max Mallowman at an archaeological dig and they married in 1930. On September 3rd 1939, Britain declared war on Germany. Max served with the British air force and Agatha once again worked as a voluntary pharmacy assistant. The British government asked Agatha to write government propaganda but she declined. Instead, she continued to write novels and her popularity grew and grew. It was during this time that Christie’s other famous creation, Miss Marple, appeared in the novel ‘The Murder at the Vicarage’. Christie had an incredible and unrivalled career. Her name is known the world over and her books have been translated into at least 103 languages. Made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II in 1971, she continued to write into her old age and died at the age of 85 in 1976. “I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow; but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.” Agatha Christie. Click here to watch a documentary about Agatha Christie. Glossary outsold – ‘to outsell’ means ‘to sell more than someone’. ‘Out’ can be used as a prefix on verbs meaning ‘more than’ or ‘better than’, e.g. ‘to outlive’, or ‘to outsing’. vendere di più di qlcs enduringly – ‘long-lasting’. ‘to endure’ means ‘to last a long time’. duraturo, durevole detective – a detective is a person, especially a police officer, whose job is to investigate and solve crimes. ispettore, investigatore longest running – ‘lasting the longest time’. The verb ‘to run’ is used with plays, e.g. ‘the play ran for two years’. (il spettacoli) più rappresentati maiden – a young woman. The noun ‘maiden name’ refers to a woman’s name before she married and took her husband’s name. signorina brought up – ‘to bring up’. A phrasal verb meaning ‘to take care of’ or ‘to rear’ a child. crescere, allevare, educare bright – the opposite of dark but here it means ‘intelligent’. intelligente forbade – the past tense of ‘to forbid’ meaning ‘to refuse to allow (something)’. proibire a qlcn di fare qlcs far-fetched – unlikely and unconvincing; fantastical. improbabile, inverosimile, forzato finishing school – a private college where girls are prepared for entry into upper-class society. 7 scuola d'élite straight after – immediately. subito, immediatamente poison – here a noun meaning something that can cause the illness or death of a living thing when eaten or drunk. veleno to go wrong – a phrasal verb meaning ‘to go badly’ or ‘to start to fail. sbagliare stopped off – ‘to stop off’ is a phrasal verb meaning ‘to pay a short visit on the way to one's ultimate destination’. fermarsi brevemente declined – ‘to decline’ is ‘to refuse an offer’. rifiutare unrivalled – better than everyone or everything of the same type. insuperato, impareggiabile Dame – In the UK a Dame is the title given to a woman by the Queen or King. It is similar to ‘Lady’ and is given as a reward for a great achievement. dama, gentildonna despairingly – without hope. disperatamente acutely – extremely, intensely. intensamente racked with sorrow – ‘to be racked with sorrow’ means ‘to be extremely sad’. Another phrase is ‘to racked with guilt’ (to feel extremely guilty). essere sopraffattoa da pena, dilaniare da tristezza Questions about the text 1. As a child, what kind of writing did Agatha Christie do? 2. What clue does the text give that Agatha Christie might have learned French? 3. What gave Agatha the idea of making Hercule Poirot come from Belgium? 4. When was Agatha’s first novel published? 5. Can you identify two sad events in Agatha’s life? 6. How many siblings did Agatha have? 7. How did Agatha learn about poison? 8. Who taught Agatha to read and why? 9. Using only information from the text, which countries did Agatha visit? 10. True or false – Agatha’s play ‘The Mousetrap’ was a failure? Click to check your answers. 8 Yoga Image courtesy of Pixabay In the last few decades, yoga has grown in popularity around the world and is now very trendy. In most countries you will find specialist yoga studios and yoga DVDs are readily available in many shops such as supermarkets. Thousands of people take part in a weekly yoga class at their gym. Indeed, every year more and more people around the world are doing this ancient activity. Although most of us know that yoga improves flexibility and reduces stress, many of us still have questions. For example, when was it invented and by whom? Does it really improve both physical and mental health? Let’s take a closer look… Yoga is a traditional practice which started in Asia. Until recently, historians believed that yoga began around 500 BC, which is approximately the same time as Buddhism was founded by Gautama Siddhartha. However, in the early 1900s, archaeologists discovered the remains of the famous Indus civilisation in what is now modern day India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. In the remains of the Indus civilisation, archaeologists unearthed objects which showed pictures of people in yoga-like positions. These discoveries prove that yoga existed much earlier than people previously thought, maybe around four thousand years ago. However, despite this evidence, we still don’t know exactly when yoga began. There are many different styles of yoga. One of the best known is Ashtanga yoga, which has been made famous by celebrities such as Madonna. Ashtanga yoga has very strenuous sequences of poses which get more difficult as the person improves. As with all yoga, breathing is very important and in Ashtanga yoga and the person doing it must change their pose every time they take a breath. Aficionados of Ashtanga say it develops strength as well as being a good cardio workout. Another form of yoga which has become extremely popular is Bikram yoga, named after its inventor Bikram Choudry. This style of yoga utilises twenty-six different yoga poses but what makes it unique is that it must take place in a room with a temperature of 105 degrees and with a humidity of 40 percent. A session is usually about ninety minutes and advocates of this yoga style believe it cleans the organs by pushing blood through the body. Other forms of yoga include: Anusara, which allows people to do poses at their own level and not push themselves too hard; Hatha yoga, which is the base of most modern forms of yoga; Jivamukti yoga, which includes Sanskrit chanting and prenatal yoga, which was developed especially for pregnant women. As we have seen, there are some differences between the different types of yoga. However, when people describe the benefits of yoga it appears they all have some things in common. Such benefits include: improved flexibility, stress reduction, improved cardiovascular fitness, healthier 9 joints and stronger muscles. So what is yoga? Is it a sport or a gym class? Or perhaps a spiritual path? Amit Ray, author of ‘Yoga and Vipassana: An Integrated Life Style’ described it in the following way: “Yoga is not a religion. It is a science, science of well-being, science of youthfulness, science of integrating body, mind and soul.” Click here to watch a short video about yoga. Glossary few – not many, e.g. ‘I went to the cinema with a few friends’. pochie grown in popularity – ‘to grown in popularity’ means ‘to become more popular’. veder aumentare il proprio prestigio/la propria popolarità trendy – fashionable, something very popular at that moment. à la page readily available – found or bought easily. si trovano facilmente take part in – ‘to take part in something’ is a phrasal verb and it means ‘to do an activity with others’. prendere parte, partecipare a qc whom - used instead of ‘who’ as the object of a verb or preposition. spesso sostituito da "who" nella lingua parlata, interrogative “chi” remains – what is left of something, from the verb ‘to remain’. rimanere, restare unearthed – ‘to unearth’ means ‘to dig something up’ or ‘to remove it from the earth/ground’. dissotterrare previously – before. in precedenza, prima strenuous – something which is physically difficult and needs a lot of effort. energicoa, vigorosoa poses – a ‘pose’ is a way of standing or sitting without moving. posa utilises – ‘to utilise’ means ‘to use’. usare take place – ‘to take place’ a phrasal verb which means ‘to happen’. succedere, accadere advocates – an ‘advocate’ is someone who advocates (supports, is in favour of) something. sostenitoretrice push themselves too hard – ‘to push oneself’ means ‘to make a big effort’. sforzarsi, impegnarsi chanting – a type of singing, often religious. canto, salmodia have some things in common – ‘to have things in common’ means ‘to have things which are the same’. avere in comune joints – a ‘joint’ is a place in the human, or animal, body where two parts of the skeleton are fitted 10