Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RP 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011, USA 10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia 0 Cambridge University Press 1988 Fist published 1988 Reprinted 1990 Printed in Great Britain by Scotprint Ltd, Musselburgh, Scotland ISBN 0 521 34817 X Copyright The law allows a reader to make a single copy of part of a book for purposes of private study. It does not allow the copying of entire books or the making of multiple copies of extracts. Written permission for any such copying must always be obtained from the publisher in advance. Contents Introduction iv Young and old 1 Every day 2 Where we live 4 Some interesting numbers A year in England 7 Tooth task 8 Three fish 9 What can you do with an old can? Coloured legs 12 Water 12 Poem 14 A camel or a car? 15 Miss Angell- secretary 17 Fresh from the kitchen 20 Noises people hate 23 A rose called 'Peace' 25 From the clouds 27 Lucky babies 30 Colours 32 Two poems 34 A road for Rhenigidale 35 Singing like a bird 37 Who was Dracula? 39 50 kilos a year 40 Meet Nasredin 43 120 cats - and Blossom 44 Bicycles up Kilimanjaro 47 A new family 50 Makeup for men 52 Cows, customers and cold feet 54 How to remember 56 The beginning, the middle and the end 58 Answers 59 Acknowledgements inside back cover Introduction To the reader Ask a teacher (or othfir English speaker) to help you with this introduction. Welcome to Something to Read 1, a collection of 32 short texts on a variety of subjects for Beginner and Elementary students of Enghsh. As you'll see from the Contents page, there are three groups of texts; the first group is easier than the second, and the second is easier than the third. Within each group the early texts are usually simpler than the later ones. It's not necessary, however, to start at the beginning and read through the whole book in order. We've provided you with a choice of topics so that you can look for things that interest you personally. We believe that it's useful for you to begin reading authentic English as early as pos- sible. Many texts therefore include extracts from books, magazines etc. Where such authentic material has been shortened - for reasons of difficulty, space or organisation - you'll see [. . .]. When you're reading, we suggest that you concentrate on general meaning first rather than trying to understand every word. In other words, try not to use a dictionary all the time. Where we feel that a dictionary would* b.e particularly helpful, we tell you. After the &st few texts, there are tasks, marked These are there to give you help with meaning and opportunities to assess your reading, if you want them. These tasks are not tests of memory, so do look at the text while you're daing them. The answers to the tasks are on pages 59-60. We hope you enjoy the book! To the teacher Something to Read 1 is intended to provide more extensive reading practice than is gen- erally possible in a course book With this book the choice of what, when and how much to read is, we feel, best left to the students. The teacher's role is simply to make the book available, although you might like to provide time in class for students to talk about what they've read. To start your students off, we suggest that you explain the above introduction to them, or provide a translation, and then encourage them to choose a text and start reading. Whatever course book your students are using, it may be a helpful indication of level to know that students using Level 1o f the Cambmdge English Course should be able to begin reading from the first group of texts by the time they reach Unit 12 and from the second and third groups at about Units 16 and 24 respectively. Every day * Read this with a dictionary - look up only the underlined words. . . . In the world More than 172,000 babies are born. 204,820 tonnes of fish are caught. 75,972 cars, 240,821 TV sets and 419,178 radios are made. 1,780,465 people travel by plane. More than 2 cigarettes are made for every man, woman and child in the world. 75 Americans, 55 Japanese and 5 Swedes kill themselves, and 34 Thais, 30 Brazilians and 1.5 Canadians are murdered. 115,000 tourists arrive in Spain, 51,000 in Italy, and 32,000 in Britain. The Sultan of Brunei - the richest man in the world - gets $282,191. 11,673,342 Russians go to the cinema. . . . In Britain 2,000 babies are born, 1,100 couples get married, and 1,800 people die. There are 68,500,000 phone calls. mpfesg et maiFi.isd 32,000,000 letters are posted. 126 people go to prison. 5,046 ueoole take their driving test. r ,I and 2,454 of them pass. 1,991,780p eople travel on the L rrrxrx*i, Underground railway. fu prtso~ . . . And The k son your head grow about 0.33 m.,a nd between 30 and 100 of them f-all o ut. You blink 17,000 times. While you sleep you dream for about 2 hours and lose 340g. in weight. Where we live Cities and towns in cities- a nd towns nnof 40% of the people in the world live in cities and towns. In Britain 90.83%o f people live in cities and towns; in Burundi it's 2.29%. \. Rich countries, poor countries Map 2 shows how much money people earn in one year in the different coun- ties of the world. For exam- ple, in the United States people earn an average of $6,400 in one year. TABLE 1 The Lot of the Many, a Lot for the Few Average income per head, 1981 Shares of world populi " I, 1981 Shares of world income, 1981 US$ 30 809 1600 3200 6400 0 data not available Sources: Lloyds Bank Economic Review on Tatwan 1983; WorldBankAtlas 1980, 1983 Extremes: Bhutan, Laos $80 Qatar $27,720 Table 1 shows that the poor countries (where rich countries (where people earn an average of people &TI an average of $400) have 49%o f the $6,400) have 67% of the money but 15% of the population of the world but 5% of the money. The population. Some interesting numbers One Multiplying Is gives numbers that are the same when read from the right or the left. Here it stops, but look also at 11: and at 111: