Reading # 1 Job Descriptions

Read what people say about their Jobs an write down what job they have. Translate the
text into Spanish (Lee lo que la gente dice sobre sus trabajos y escribe cual es el
empleo que ellos tienen) Traduce al español.

 Police Officer
 Waiter
 Teacher
 Nurse
 Sports Player
 Dentist
 Gardener
 Musician
 Pilot
 Author
 Architect

1. Some people treat you so badly and think that's OK as long as they give you a few dollars._______________

2. Many people are suspicious of us but I believe those people are the ones with something to hide._____________

3. It's true that I have had to put my hands into and look into some nasty places, but the money's great and everybody

wants to know one of us!_________________

4. It's not all fancy performances and globetrotting I can tell you! Without hard work, dedication and lots and lots of
practice, you won't succeed. _________________

5. We have become a lot more aware in recent years about health dangers that exist while working here and now we are

even more careful. After all, I want to remain on this side of the curtain!____________________

6. It's great seeing paper plans come to real stone and brick reality ______________________

7. Yeah, we get paid a lot but there's always the risk of injury and our careers are pretty short.___________________

8. The first and last five minutes are the most stressful and that goes for the members of the public as well. _______________

9. Some days, I get blocked really badly and can't string more than two words together. ________________

10. In this institution, a lot of it is control. When you consider their home life, that's understandable! ___________________

11. I consider myself an artist, I really do! What I create lasts a long time and can even change throughout the year.

__________________
Reading #3 A Siberian Winter
Read the text below and translate it into Spanish. (Lee el texto abajo y traducelo al español)

It was only minus 28 degrees Celsius when we landed in Irkutsk. But that was cold enough to make breathing an effort - the air
felt like ice as it scraped the back of my throat. Five minutes later, I needed a second pair of gloves and pulled my scarf tight
over my nose and mouth. I was obviously a beginner at this.
At the petrol station, Mikhail the attendant laughed when we asked if he wasn't freezing. He'd spent the whole day outside with
no more than his fur hat and a sheepskin coat for warmth. It was mid-afternoon and icicles were hanging from his moustache
like Dracula's fangs. He said he never drank to stay warm - unlike many others.
Vodka
There's a belief in Siberia that enough vodka will insulate you from the cold. It's been proved tragically wrong in the past few
weeks. Dozens of bodies of the homeless or men walking drunkenly back from the pub were hauled out of the snowdrifts,
frozen or so badly frost-bitten that many will never walk again.
The local hospital in Irkutsk is overwhelmed. Ironically, it's the burns unit that's taken all the frostbite victims - 200 of them in just
two weeks in one town. Even here, icicles are hanging down on the inside of the windows, though the heating is on full power.
The doctor was too busy performing amputations to talk to us.
Shortages
But we could hear the screams from the operating room. They'd run out of anaesthetic after performing 60 amputations that
week. The other patients could hear it too, and one girl in the corridor, clinging to her mother for support, was near to tears.
Nastya is only 16. Last week she missed her last bus home, so she walked instead - seven kilometres through the snow, in
temperatures of minus 40. She had no gloves. Now her hands are bandaged and hang down uselessly. She'll find out soon if
they need to be amputated.
She was far from the worst case. In one bed, Nikolai Dobtsov lay quietly staring at the ceiling. Underneath the sheets, blood
was seeping through his bandages, from where his feet and hands had been amputated the day before. He was a truck driver,
he explained, with a good job delivering wood - and recently there'd been a lot of demand. So he'd set out to deliver a last load
upcountry. The weather forecast - just minus 25 in Irkutsk - seemed to suggest that the journey was safe. It wasn't. His truck
broke down miles from anywhere, and for 6 desperate hours he fought to repair the axle. He even greased his hands for
protection, and finally managed to get the truck going again. Somehow he found the strength to drive himself back and straight
to hospital, but it was already too late.
I asked Nikolai what would happen to him now. He just laughed, and shrugged. Nikolai has no wife or family in Irkutsk - and
invalidity benefit is a pittance. Life in an institution may be the best he can hope for, and he'll almost certainly never work again.
Resilience
That incredible stoicism is everywhere. In Irkutsk at least, people seem simply to accept that winter is harsh - and this one
especially so. It is without doubt the cruellest Siberian winter in living memory. Yet outdoors, everything appears to function
normally - even schools re-opened as the temperature rose briefly to minus 25.
The trams and buses are back on the roads, though everyone drives slowly to avoid skidding on the layers of ice below the grit.
The main street bustles with people wrapped in layers against the cold. But even indoors, the chill is inescapable. After her shift
as a tram conductor, Natasha Fillipova comes home to a freezing house. She shows us the bedroom - where ice has built up
on the inside walls. She scrapes it off with her fingers, but that has little effect. One night, Natasha says, she washed her hair
before going to bed. When she woke up, it was frozen solid to the wall. The children are doing their homework in the bathroom -
the only room warm enough to sit in. Natasha doesn't want to complain. But she is angry with the state and the architects for
building shoddy houses.
The flats here are supposed to withstand up to minus 40 degrees. They don't, and her children are ill with coughs and colds.
Natasha's anger is brief, and she seems faintly embarrassed about it. Siberians are used to cold weather, she explains. Here,
she tells us, people prefer to rely on themselves - and the knowledge that eventually, spring will come.
According to what you have read, mark the correct answer in the multiple choise given. Según lo que has leido, marca la
respuesta correcta en la selección multiple dada.

1. What do we learn in the opening paragraph?

The author arrived by bus.

The author wasn't accustomed to such cold.

The author wished he had had another pair of gloves.

The author ate some ice when he arrived.

2. What is the local theory about vodka?

If you drink too much, you may never walk again.

If you don't drink it, you may lose your legs.

If you drink it, you may suffer less from the cold.

You shouldn't drink it if you are old.

3. Which sentence is true about the hospital?

It is too warm inside.

They don't have enough supplies and equipment.

The staff didn't want to talk to the journalist.

Most frost-bite victims need to have operations.

4. What happened to Nikolai?

He almost lost his hands.

He ignored the weather forecast.

 He had a problem with his engine.

He had had to help himself.

5. Houses in Irkutsk...

don't have separate bathrooms.

were built by private companies for profit.

are too cold if the temperature is less than -40ºC.

cause health problems for their reside

Reading #4
Advanced Reading Exercise

Read the text below and then answer questions 1-5 choosing in each case the
answer (A, B or C) which fits best.

Africa Check, a fledgling fact checking website, is attempting to pin down unfounded claims made by the country's leaders,
media outlets along with widely held beliefs.

There is a common claim in Johannesburg that it has the largest man-made forest in the world. It's easy to believe; the city
has lush, green canopy that covers many neighborhoods. But it's not true, according to Africa Check, which found that the
largest man-made forest is actually in China, next to the Gobi desert.

Debunking bogus claims, politically charged fictions and unfounded statements, Africa Check is a website that challenges
media, politicians and the occasional social media celebrity when they massage the truth, or ignore it completely, said Julian
Rademeyer, southern Africa editor for the site.

"I think the fundamental element of our work is that we are trying to get people to question what they're told, what they
read, what politicians say to them, and to look at what the information that is there and ask essentially what the
fundamental question is 'Where is the evidence?' If someone makes a claim, where is the evidence to support that claim,
and to actually interrogate those claims and not to accept things purely for what they are," Rademeyer said.

Africa Check was launched in June 2012 by the Agence France Press foundation in partnership with the University of
Witswaterand's journalism department. Rademeyer and a researcher are the site's two full-time employees. There is also a
team of freelance reporters who work on fact checking assignments.

Following in the footsteps of popular American websites like PolitiFact and Factcheck.org, Africa Check is the first media
outlet in South Africa to solely work in fact checking. South Africa has a strong legacy of investigative journalism and
photography that dates back to the apartheid era. But like many countries, Rademeyer says its news industry has been
hampered by shrinking budgets and newsrooms.
"Because of the fact that newspapers don't have the resources they would've had in the past, or don't have specialist beat
reporters," he said. "It allows public figures and it allows politicians to make claims that don't go checked. I think that's
where we play a role. We come in and look at those claims and we have the ability and the time to go through those
claims."

Paula Fray, former editor for the Star Newspaper and a media consultant, says Africa Check may put a much-needed
pressure on newsrooms.

"At the moment Africa Check is not known as much as I'm hoping as it going to be known," she said. "I'm hoping that
eventually journalists will be writing their stories and thinking if my news editor doesn't pick up that something hasn't been
verified, Africa Check might pick up that it hasn't been verified. So I'm not going to put anything in my stories unless I can
prove it."

She also hopes it will create a greater culture of accountability. "I think the more organizations out there holding journalism
to account the better actually for the industry," Fray said.

The site also takes on myths that get repeated so often that they go unchecked. When a South African musician with
175,000 Facebook followers made the claim that white South Africans are being killed at an alarming rate, Africa Check
looked into the facts. It found that most of the musician's claims were exaggerated or untrue.

The site has also debunked claims made about traditional healers, South Africa's rate of asylum seekers and a BBC report
about white squatter camps in South Africa.

Long term, Rademeyer envisions the site expanding across the continent. "I really do think as a project it could play a very
important role," he said. "We've done some very basic fact checking or fact sheet-related reporting on elements of the
elections in Zimbabwe recently. We'd obviously like to do more of that in the next elections in Zimbabwe, for instance, and
elections in neighboring countries. And try to expand our reach." With presidential elections looming next year in South
Africa, Botswana, Mozambique and Namibia, the site will be busy.

1. The new website has been set up to show Africa in a more positive light.

true

false

2. The new website proved that more money is spent on the environment in China.

true

false

3. What are the stated aims of Africa Watch?

 to get people angry

to get people to think

to get people reading more

4. Which of these has hit South African journalism?

bribery

corruption

money problems

5. How will Africa Watch put pressure on newspapers?

by making them check information before publishing

by taking website traffic from them

by giving them better journalists

6. What was the Facebook musician found to inaccurate about?

crime by whites

crime against whites

how many white killers there are

7. What hopes does Julian Rademeyer have for the site's future?
that it can predict election results better

that they will be allowed into Zimbabwe

that it can become more important across the continent

Reading #5

Prisoner 7042

In the following text, the headings of eight sections have been removed. Choose the
best heading (A-H) for the eight sections (1-8). You only need to write the letter in the
box.

Use these headings to fill the spaces below.

A. Haunted By The Past

B. Financial Wrongdoing
C. Wasted Opportunities
D. Healthy Diversions
E. Yawning And Yearning
F. Anxious Wait
G. Artistic Escape
H. Ordinary People

Looking Back In Anger

1.

Max Scheffer gets up at 7a.m. He got up at 7a.m. today and he will get up at 7a.m. tomorrow.
Max Scheffer knows today that he will get up at 7a.m. every single morning for the next 2
years of his life. Which probably explains the first thing Max intends to do when he gets out of
Bayville Minimum Security Prison For Men. "I'm going to spend a week in bed. I wish we didn't
have to get up so early. On the outside, I always hated getting up early." As he speaks to me,
he calmly, almost nonchalantly, carves away at a wooden figurine with deft strokes of what
seems to be a simple Swiss Army knife.

2.
Max was sentenced to four years imprisonment for his part in a fraudulent scheme to
overcharge clients in his Toronto-based insurance company. He gives me no more details than
that and I don't ask. Two years of good behavior gives him every hope that he could be
released as early as next year.

3.

"I could never imagine someone like myself in a jail. It's beyond belief. There are so many
normal guys like me in this place. Everyone is in for petty financial stuff. Nothing violent.
Bayville is actually a pretty OK place. I just wish I wasn't so bored all the time."

4.

Max finds his days organized for him. He spends up to 19 hours locked in his cell but, being a
low security prison, some people would be surprised to find just how many home comforts he
is allowed. "I watch a lot of TV. We only have about six or seven channels. You know, no cable!
I got into watching those old black and white classics which is where the painting started." Max
indicated the wall above the TV set to me and there, between huge posters of the Toronto Blue
Jays and Albert Einstein were hung some 15 or so vintage style movie posters, all hand painted
by Max himself.

5.

"The warden was really decent about getting me the paints. I really regret not taking this up
earlier. I've only been doing this for about six months. So you know, I could have spent the
first 18 months a lot more constructively. When you're shut away like this, you have to occupy
your mind or you'll go crazy. That's my favorite right there." He points out a small hand
painted poster for the film Casablanca.

6.

I avoid asking Max about the crimes that brought him here but ask him instead about how he
feels about being here. What regrets does he have or does he not waste his time with regrets?
It seems Max most certainly does waste his time. "I regret having been so greedy. I am here
for $10,000. It wasn't worth it. I mean, even for a million it wasn't worth it. But for ten grand
it was crazy. I wish I hadn't listened to my colleague who convinced me everything would go
smoothly. I regret being so angry about things in the past I can't change but that's just the
way I feel."

7.

Max's cell shows all the signs of a man struggling with boredom. A harmonica lies at the foot of
his bed while his small bedside table is full of wordsearch and crossword puzzle books. On the
sill of his cell window, complete with screen instead of bars, lies a half-finished model of the
Notre Dame in what looks suspiciously like toothpicks. "I wish I hadn't wasted so much time
when I first got here. There are fellow inmates who have taken degree courses, masters, you
name it, they've done it right here inside Bayville. I did nothing but watch TV and read the free
magazines for over a year. I just thought that's what you did! I wish someone on the staff here
had taken me aside and told me what possibilities exist in here. That would be my only
complaint."

8.

As we talk together in Max's cell, I notice him looking more and more at his watch. I ask what
the problem is. "I'm waiting for the buzzer, you know for lunch. You start to live your life
according to a buzzer. It's sad I know." Then just as he says that, the aforementioned call to
lunch sounds and I think I see a look somewhere between satisfaction and relief pass across
his very friendly face.
Reading #6

Ice Melt Clues To Future Climate - Heading Gap Fill

In the following text, the headings of five sections have been removed. Choose the
best heading (A-F) for the five sections (1-5). There is one extra heading you do not
need to use. You only need to write the letter in the box.

Use these headings to fill the spaces below. There is one extra you do not need to use.

A. Old Ice Clues

B. History Repeating Itself
C. Fear For The Future
D. Super Fast Melt
E. Accurate Predictors
F. Fresh Input

When the climate began to warm during the last Ice Age about 23,000 years ago, much of the
Northern Hemisphere was covered in ice.

In two new studies published this week in Nature Geoscience, researchers describe how ice
sheets behaved in the past could help scientists better predict what might happen to them in a
warmer world of our future.

1.

University of Wisconsin geologist Anders Carlson studies ice sheet melt from land and ocean
sediment cores. His study describes what prehistoric Earth was like in North America and
Northern Europe some 140,000 years ago.
"What we found in this paper was that ice that's resting on land it responded very quickly to
the warming climate, but then it didn't retreat really rapidly. It kind of chugged along and
slowly melted like an ice cube if you put a hair dryer on it," Carlson says, adding that was
not the case with ice sheets floating on the ocean. "Marine based ice sheets behave
unpredictably. They may not do anything for a while, and then they all of a sudden respond
very abruptly. They can rapidly disappear."

2.

Greenland and Antarctica hold the Earth's last remaining ice sheets. In July, satellite data
showed that 97 percent of the surface of the Greenland ice sheet had turned to slush over four
days, a rate faster than at any time in recorded history. According to Carlson, it might be
responding rapidly to small changes in temperature, similar to what he saw in the prehistoric
record of ice sheets on land.

"But that said, they haven't catastrophically collapsed in the past either to rapidly raise sea
level in the time scale that humans would care about, that we would be hard pressed to adapt
to." Carlson says the Antarctic marine-based ice sheet is less predictable. "What this would
say from the past is that these ice sheets, well they may not do anything for a bit. But then if
you want to catastrophically raise sea level like on the orders of a meter or two in human
lifetime, there is prehistoric precedent for that happening."

3.

A second paper in Nature Geoscience looks back 12,000 to 7,000 years to when massive ice
sheets still covered the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. At that time, the global
climate was roughly comparable to what it is today and glaciers were melting.

The study describes abrupt sea level jumps - from one-half to two meters -from melting
glaciers.

4.
"What happens when you suddenly drain these massive amounts of fresh water into the
ocean? It's going to change ocean circulation," says co-author Torbjorn Tornqvist, an Earth
scientist at Tulane University in Louisiana.

Today, rapid melting from the Greenland ice sheet would send massive amounts of fresh water
into the North Atlantic Ocean, changing the marine environment.

"But it will also lead to potentially higher precipitation rates in the same region, which could
also lead to fresher surface waters in the North Atlantic," Tornqvist says. "So we need to
understand whether those types of changes could potentially be capable of triggering these
kinds of abrupt climate events."

5.

Tornqvist adds that understanding how abrupt climate changes affected Earth's geologic past
can help design climate models that can better predict the future.

Reading #7

New York History - Heading Gap Fill

In the following text, the headings of six sections have been removed. Choose the best
heading (A-G) for the six sections (1-6). There is one extra heading you do not need to
use. You only need to write the letter in the box.

Use these headings to fill the spaces below. There is one extra you do not need to use.

A. Changing Economy
B. Political Colors
C. Cool Again
 D. Crime Hits Hard
E. Hard Times
F. Shifting Populations
G. Homecoming Heroes

As the largest state, New York again supplied the most resources during World War II and
suffered 31,215 casualties. The war affected the state both socially and economically. For
example, to overcome discriminatory labor practices, Governor Herbert H. Lehman created the
Committee on Discrimination in Employment in 1941 and Governor Thomas E. Dewey signed
the Ives-Quinn bill in 1945, banning employment discrimination.

1.

The G.I. Bill of 1944, which offered returning soldiers the opportunity of affordable higher
education, forced New York to create a public university system since its private universities
could not handle the influx; the State University of New York was created by Governor Dewey
in 1948.

2.

World War II constituted New York's last great industrial era. At its conclusion, the defense
industry shrank and the economy shifted towards producing services rather than goods.
Returning soldiers disproportionately displaced female and minority workers who had entered
the industrial workforce only when the war left employers no other choice. Companies moved
to the south and west, seeking lower taxes and a less costly, non-union workforce.

3.

Many workers followed the jobs. The middle class expanded and created suburbs such as the
one on Long Island. The automobile accelerated this decentralization; planned communities
like Levittown offered affordable middle-class housing. Larger cities stopped growing around
1950. Growth resumed only in New York City, in the 1980s. Buffalo's population fell by half
between 1950 and 2000. Reduced immigration and worker migration led New York State's
population to decline for the first time between 1970 and 1980. California and Texas both
surpassed it in population.
New York entered its third era of massive transportation projects by building highways, notably
the New York State Thruway. The project was unpopular with New York City Democrats, who
referred to it as "Dewey's ditch" and the "enemy of schools", because the Thruway
disproportionately benefited upstate. The highway was based on the German Autobahn and
was unlike anything seen at that point in the United States. It was within 30 miles (48 km) of
90% of the population at its conception. Costing $600 million, the full 427-mile (687 km)
project opened in 1956.

4.

Nelson Rockefeller was governor from 1959-1973 and changed New York politics. He began as
a liberal, but grew more conservative: he responded aggressively to the Attica Prison riot, and
promulgated the uniquely severe Rockefeller Drug Laws. The World Trade Center and other
profligate projects nearly drove New York City into bankruptcy in 1975. The state took
substantial budgetary control, which eventually led to improved fiscal prudence.

5.

The Executive Mansion was retaken by Democrats in 1974 and remained under Democratic
control for 20 years under Hugh Carey and Mario Cuomo. Late-century Democrats became
more centrist, including US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1977-2001) and New York City
Mayor Ed Koch (1978-1989), while state Republicans began to align themselves with the more
conservative national party. They gained power through the elections of Senator Alfonse
D'Amato in 1980, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in 1993, and Governor George Pataki in 1994. New
York remained one of the most liberal states. In 1984, Ronald Reagan was the last Republican
to carry the state, although Republican Michael Bloomberg served as New York City mayor in
the early 21st century.

6.

In the late 20th century, there was a surge in culture. New York City became, once again, "the
center for all things chic and trendy". Hip-hop and rap music, led by New York City, became
the most popular pop genre. Immigration to both the city and state rose. New York City, with a
large gay and lesbian community, suffered many deaths from AIDS.

New York City increased its already large share of television programming, home to the
network news broadcasts as well as two of the three major cable news networks. The Wall
Street Journal and The New York Times became two of the three "national" newspapers, read
throughout the country. New York also increased its dominance of the financial services
industry centered on Wall Street, led by banking expansion, a rising stock market, innovations
in investment banking, including junk bond trading and accelerated by the savings and loan
crisis that decimated competitors elsewhere in New York.