72 31822122-la Practical Faster Reading A course in reading and vocabulary for upper-intermediate and more advanced students Gerald Mosback Vivienne Mosback CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Contents Preface vii Acknowledgements viii How to use this book — ix Faster cficetive reading 2 Obstacles to faster effective reading 6 Hints for reading practice (part 1) 9 Hints for reading practice (part 2) 13 Money 17 Diamonds 21 Canning food 25 The Olympic Games 28 Auction sales 32 The planemakers 36 Dreams - what do they mean? 40 To be or not to be avegetarian 43 Making leather 47 ts 51 ‘The history of chemistry 55 Electric fish 59 Dried food 62 The United Nations 66 Pottery 70 Pasteurization 74 Modern surgery 77 Smoking and cancer 81 Rabies 85 Vitamins 88 Bringing up children (part 1) 92 Bringing up children (part 2) 95 Etiquette (part 1) 100 Etiquette (part 2) 108 Social classes (part 1) 108 Social classes (part 2) 112 Answers 117 Preface The reading practice offered by this course draws on a wide variety of general knowledge topics. The final selection is the result of several major revisions in the course of extensive use of the materials in a number of university, adult education and senior secondary school contexts, where English is the medium of instruction for non-native speakers. Experience suggests the course is best used as one element in a general scheme of work in English, and covered at arate of one or two hours per week. The passages are of approximately equal length (300 words) and the same level of difficulty throughout, to allow a really meaningful com- parison of reading speeds and comprehension scores at the beginning and end of the course. In practice, reading speed improvement has been found to be in the region of 80-100% over 30-40 hours of instruction, but equally important has been the improvement in comprehension and extension of vocabulary resulting from other elements of the course. ‘The vocabulary level basically corresponds to level 8 of the Cambridge English Lexicon, and is entirely within the 5,000 words of the Ladder vocabulary, developed initially by the United States Information Service, both of which were closcly consulted during preparation of the material. The Thorndike and Lorge Teacher's Wordbook of 30,000 words (Columbia University Press) was also consulted. Words which fall outside the CEL level 5 are occasionally explained for the student, where such words are not semantically contextualized and the reader has no way of working out the meaning. Sometimes, however, such a word is the subject of a vocabulary question and is there- fore not glossed. We should like to thank the many teachers who used these materials in the experimental stage ~ particularly Janet James at the United Nations Feonomic Commission for Africa Headquarters, and John Murray-Robertson and Michael James, British Council instructors at the General Wingate School, Addis Ababa, G.M. VM. How to use this book Students should be aware ut the outset that this is not exclusively a speed reading course. Reading practice courses to date have tended to fall into two sharply distinct categories - those which concentrate almost entirely on rcuding for speed, and those which seck to encourage comprehension at some leisure and in depth, This book is designed to improve the reading of expository English in two ways, It should certainly increase reading speed, through the first ‘Ideas’ exercises, but it should also improve comprehension in the areas of vocabulary, sentence patterns and paragraph structure through all the subsequent exercises. Ideas The reading speed element is covered by this section. The best method is to begin each reading practice session with the speedfideas exercise. Since the passages are all approximately 500 words long, timing is simple. The teacher should make surc he has a watch with a seconds hand or a stop- watch. He marks up on the blackhoard the passing of each ten seconds. As the student finishes reading and turns to the Ideas questions, he notes down the last time the teacher has written on the board. The values for a 500-word passage are roughly as follow Reading Reading time Speed time Speed {minjsces) (w.p.m.) {minjsees) (w.p-m,) 1.00 500 3.10 1.10 427 3.20 1.20 375 3.30 130 334 340 140 300 3.50 1.50 273 4.00 2.00 250 4.10 210 231 4.20 2.20 215 430 2.30 200 440 240 188 450 2.50 a 5.00 3.00 167 Students should answer the Ideas questions without looking back to the passage and in as shart a time as possible. Five or six minutes should be enough to answer these questions so that the whole speed section, a reading of the passage and answering the Ideas questions should not tke more than ten minutes altogether. How to use this book The students should keep a record in a convenient place of their reading time and Ideas score for euch session. The Ideas score should not fall below G ot 7 out of 10, while a steady and encouraging improvement should be noted in the speed. The passages are definitely not designed for lecture} explanation presentation in the first instance, and bearing in mind that a reading speed of 250 w.p.n. is ut the low end of the scale for an educated native speaker dealing with this kind of material at upper high school and college level, ESL students should certainly not take more than three to four minutes for a passage, with comprehension at around 7U%%, Inivially, students will probably underestimate the time they need to read a passage under the mistaken impression that speed is the only important object of the exercise. It must be remembered that mere speed without retention is valucless Note that although units 1-4 are rhe same in length and format as all other units in the book, the passage content forms a revision of points relating to the process of reading speed improvement and should be re- tead and explained with carc hy the teacher. Tf he wishes to Lime one or more of them for familiarization and as a check on students" reading speeds at the beginning of the course, care should be taken to go over the passage again in detail on completion of the exercise. Since this is an upper- intermediare to advanced course, however, it is expected that most students will already be familiar with many of die points covered in units 1-4, Vocabulary As far as possible, the vocabulary questions are designed to provide not only a contextually identifiable correct answer, but, in addition, to expat the student’s vocabulary by including secondary and related meanings among the distractors. The student must look back to the passage for this exercise, as only the context will tell him which of the possible meanings of a word is the correct one for the passaye, In many instances the student may be definitely misled if he does not luok back. In passage 22, Vocabulary, for example; roughly (line 2) a) approximately b) cnidely ¢) impolitely a) exaclly the correct answer for this context, a), is probably no more common a meaning for ‘roughly” in general English than cither b) or c). This is an area where the teacher can considerably expand the students’ recognition vocabulary when he discusses the answers with the class. Shades of meaning between apparent synonyms, prefix, suffix and root meanings can be explored. Of course it is not possible for all the distractors to be relevant in this way since the number of words with four or more meanings is Timited, but the opportunity has been taken wherever possible, and it is just as important to explain why the wrong answers are wrong as why the How to use this book right answers are correct. Certainly the teacher should not be content merely to read off, or have the students read off, the list of correct answers, Similar or different? This exercise brings the student from word level to phrase and sentence level in close reading practice. Under the teacher’s guidance, and with reference Lo the passage, he will consolidate his understanding of relation- ships between the more common sentence patterns in English, Missing word summary With this exercise, the focus widens still further to the relationship between sentences within the paragraph. In cach exercise, five of the missing words are structural and five contextualized vocabulary. Spot the topic Here the student's attention is drawn to the thematic nature of the English paragraph, and the total cffect in combination of its component sentences. Discussion and writing topics Towards the end of the course (passages 26-30) discussion and writing topics are introduced. These are designed for the most general use possible, cither for oral work with smaller groups, or writing practice after class preparation by the teacher. They broaden the scope of the course towards the end to lead on to more general work when sound reading habits have been firmly established. All the later exercises should be worked through with as much guidance from the teacher as necessary. We should like to emphasize that only the Ideas questions are concerned with checking the reading speed practice. The remaining exercises should be covered in detail and with care. Introductory passage 1 Fastcr effective reading ‘The comprehension passages on this course are designed to help you increase your reading specd. A higher reading rate, with no loss of comprehension, will help you in other subjects us well as English, and the yencrul principles apply to any language. Naturally, you will not read every book al the same speed. You would expect to read a newspaper, for example, much more rapidly than a physics or ceunvmies textbook ~ but you can raise your average reading speed over the whale range of materials you wish to cover so that the percentage gain will be the same whatever kind of reading you are concerned with. The reading passages which follow arc all of an average level of diffi culty for your stage of instruction. They are all approximarely 500 words long. They are about topics of general interest which do nat require a great deal of specialized knowledge. Thus Uiey full between the kind of reading you might find in your cexthooks and the much less demanding kind you will find in a newspaper or light novel. If you reud this kind of English, with understanding, at, say, 400 words pee minute, you might skim through a newspaper at perhaps 650-700, while with a difficult textbook you might drop to 200 or 250. Perhaps you would like ro know what reading speeds are common among native English-speaking university stadents and how those speeds can be improved. Tests in Minnesota, ULS.A., for example, have shown that students without special training can read English of average difficulty, tor example Tolstoy's War and Peace in translation, at speeds of between 240 and 250 w.p.m, with about 70% comprehension. Minnesota claims that after 12 half-hour lessons, one a week, the reading speed can be increased. with no loss of comprehension, lo around 500 w.p.m. Tt is further claimed thut with intensive training over seventeen weeks, speeds of over 1000 w.pan. can be reached, but this would be quite exceptional. If you get to the point where you can tead books of average difficulty at between 400 and 500 w.p.m. with 70% or more comprehension, you will be doing quite well, though of course any further improvement of speed-with-comprehensiva will be a good thing. Tn this and the following three passages we shall be lovking at some of the obstacles to faster reading and what we can do to overcome them. 50 Tatraductory pussage 1 Think of the passage as a whole When you practise reading with passages shorter than haok length, like the passages in this course, do not cry to take in each wurd separately, ‘one after the other. Tt is much mare difficult i grasp the broad theme ‘of the passage this way, and you will also ger stuck on individual words which may not be absolutely essential w a genesal understanding wf the passage. It is a good idea to skim thrnugh the passage very quickly [iest (say 500 words in a minute of so} to get the general idea of exch paragraph, Titles, paragraph headings and emphasized words (underlined or an italics) can hea great help in getting this skeleton outline of the passage. It is surprising how many people do not read titles, imeroductions or paragraph headings. Can you, without looking back, remember the tithe of this passaye und the hesding of this paragraph Ideas Select the answer whieh is most accurate according to the information given in the passage. 1 A higher reading rate will help in other subjects as well as Rglish a) provided there is no loss of understanding, 6) only if we memorize well €} bucnoc in any other langu: d) chough not as a gencral principle. 2 You would expect to read a difficult economics textbook a} as fast as you read a newspaper. b) more slowly than you read a newspaper. €}_ more quickly than you read these passages. 4) only very rarely, 3 You can expect to read the passages on this course a) more quickly than you read your textbooks, fh) more quickly than you read a newspaper ©) more slowly than you read your lex tbooks, ) faster than any other kind of material 4 The average untrained native speaker at the University of Minnesota &) reads at 600 wepan. b) reads at about 300 w.p.m, ¢) cannot read difficult works in translation. al) reads ut about 248 .pan, 5. The Chiversity of Minnesota claims thar in 12 a) it can triple a student's reading speed b} it can double a student's reading speed. ©) it can increase a student's reading speed four vines. cl) no real increase in reading speed can be achieved. alf-hour lessons 0 a5 Introductory passage 1 6 Intensive training over seventeen weeks can } triple an untrained student’s reading speed. 5) increase an untrained student's reading speed four times. ) double an untrained student's reading speed. }) triple the students’ comprehension scores. 7 You will be doing quite well if you can read books of average dil a) at about 450 wpm. with 70% comprehension, b) at about 600 w.p.m. with 60% comprehension. €) at about 300 w.p.m. with 70% comprehension. 4) at about 250 w.p.m, with 50% comprehension. 8 Reading words one at a time is bad because a) ithurts your eyes. hh) all words are equally important. €) itis more difficult to get the general idea of a passage. 4} some words are longer than others. 9. It is a good idea to skim through a passage quickly first a) at about 350 w.p.m. 1B) to get the general idea of each paragraph. ¢) so that you can take in each word separately. 4d) to make sure you get to the end at least once. 10 Titles and paragraph headings a) are more important dhan anything else. 'b) are surprising to many people. <)_ can easily be remembered without looking back. 4) can help us get the outline of a passag Vocabulary Find the following words in the passage and select the meaning you think is most likely to correspond among the choices given, 1 rate (line 2) 3. range (line 7) a) speed a) distance b) tax b) variety ©) score €) territory d) awareness 4) Farm 2 naturally (line 4) 4 demanding (line 14} a) ewily a) difficult b) unfortunately b) questioning ¢} without training ¢) insisting 4) of course a) asking Introductory passage 1 3. skim through (line 17) 8) take in (line 86) a) read quickly through a) understand b) make sinoath with b) adjust ©) concentrate on ¢) memorize 4) strain through a) say 6 native (ine 20) 9 grasp (line 37) a) unsophisticated a). grip tightly b) primitive bj} understand ¢} taught frum childhood ©) hold loosely 4d} uneducated ) avoid 7 obstactes (line 34) 10 itaties (line 42) a) prohibitions a) brackets b) hindrances hb) margins €) objections sloping letters 4d) disadvantages d) smaller print Spot the topic Which of the following choices a), b) ar c), mast adequately sums up the ideas of the whole paragraph? 1 Para. I {lines 1-9) a) How to increase your reading speed. b) The advantages of a gencrally higher reading speed. ©) The advantages to your English of a higher reading speed. 2 Pera, 2 (lines 10-18) a) The interest of the reading passages in this course. b) Newspapers can be read more quickly than textbooks. ce} The speed at which you might expect w read different types of English. 3 Para, 3 (lines 1 a) How native Knelish speakers read faster than others. b) How speed reading courses affected students’ reading speeds. ) How native English university students increased their teading speed to 1000 w.p.m. on average. 4 Para. 4 (lines 29-82) a) A guide to the reading speed you could aim for. b) The point of reading books of average difficulty. ©) Why further improvement is a good thing. 5 Para. 6 (lines 88-end) a) Advice on how to get the gencral idea of a picce of reading quickly b) The use of the title. €) The disadvantage of too careful initial reading,