Unit 3:Understanding Text Organization

    Understanding text organisation means being able to achieve successful comprehension of a passage and being able to recognize how a passage is organized, how sentences are joined together to make paragraphs, how paragraphs are combined into text, and how this organisation is signaled. These will help students to read faster, to look for the information easier as they can predict what is likely to follow
    This ability can be checked by different tasks
- completing the outline of a passage
- rearranging paragraphs
- inserting sentences into a passage

A. COMPLETING THE OUTLINE OF A PASSAGE

    EXERCISE 1
    Tsal Chih Chung is one of Taiwan's most famous cartoonists, and his cartoons are enjoyed by people in many different countries in Asia. His books of cartoons have now become bestsellers in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, and even Japan.
    As soon as he could hold a pencil or brush, Tsal Chih Chung lived only for drawing. Everyday he practiced drawing people and things around him as well as characters and scenes from his favorite stories. When he was only fifteen years old, he left home to work for a publisher in Taipei. At first he was happy there as he worked hard to illustrate different kinds of books. He soon began to realize, however, that he enjoyed drawing cartoons far more than drawing illustrations for books. Consequently, two years later he decided to leave his job as a book illustrator and to concentrate on drawing cartoon strips. He was determined to succeed as a cartoonist even if it meant "living on instant noodles" in order to establish himself.
    Now approaching the age of fifty, Tsal Chih Chung has achieved something unusual for a modern cartoonist. He has become outstandingly successful at transforming Chinese literature and philosophy into humorous comic stories. In this way, he has made the Chinese classics familiar to thousands of people.
    In recognition of his great achievement, several years ago Tsal Chih Chung was given an award as one of the Ten Outstanding Young People of Taiwan. Since then, he had won many prizes, and his cartoons have become popular in counties throughout Asia, America and Europe. So far, he has published more than twenty comic books. Ten of these are about ancient Chinese philosophers, and the remainder are based on Chinese historical and literary classics.
    Many of Tsal Chih Chung's books of cartoons and comics have now been published in English in countries like Singapore. His books have been translated into several other languages, including Japanese, Korean and Thai. Even publishers in countries like France and Indonesia have recently signed agreements for permission to publish his cartoon strips.
    Complete the following notes on the text

TSAL CHIH CHUNG 1. Early life   Loved Left 2. First job Got job in Taipei as after 2 years 3. His cartoons Draws cartoons based on 4. His achievements   Awarded Cartoons popular in  into English and other languages Has brought to

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EXERCISE 2

    1. The habits of those who constantly play video games are of great interest to people working in the video game industry. If video games are going to be one of the most attractive features of future interactive television systems, it is important for manufacturers to know what types of games to produce, how best to present such games on interactive video, and how to ensure that such games maintain these fascination for people. Above all, it is essential to build up detailed profiles of people who are addicted to video games.
    2. Until recently, the chief market for video games has been boys aged eight to fifteen. The fascination for interactive video games is seen in its purest form in this group. Video games appeal to some deep instinct in boys, who find it impossible to tear themselves away from them. Schoolwork is neglected, health is damaged, and even eating habits are affected. Girls of the same age, however, are entirely different, demonstrating far greater freedom from the hold of video games. Quite simply, they can take video games in their stride, being able to play them when they want and then leave them alone.
    3. A few psychologists feel that video games may serve chiefly as a refuge for boys, who develop at a far slower rate than girls do in their early teens. As a result, young teenage boys often feel embarrassed and anxious in their dealings with girls of their age and tend to withdraw into sports, clubs, hobbies - and above all video gaming.
    4. Aware of the reliance on boys of such a relatively narrow age group, some video games manufacturers have tried to attract younger boys while others have concentrated on providing an older audience with an excuse to extend its game-playing habits into adulthood. These attempts have certainly had some success, though, it must be admitted, of a fairly limited nature in comparison with the huge success of the eight to fifteen age group.
    5. No one has yet succeeded, however, in making video games attractive to the largest market of all: Young adult women. These women buy more novels and watch more films and television dramas than any other single section of the population - but few show interest in video games. Since Hollywood has undoubtedly the best experience and expertise in bringing stories to life on the screen, several large video game companies now feel it is time to join forces with the film industry. They feel that video games made by top-rate film directors and film stars must inevitably succeed in attracting women. Already well-known actors are being recruited to serve as models for the behavior and actions of the cartoon characters in video games. But, of course, such developments cannot guarantee the essential ingredient of any game: namely that it is such fun to play that it is irresistible.
Complete the following notes with the information from the reading text. Write one word or several words in each blank.
Important for manufacturers to know (1)
Chief market now = (2)
Dangers = (3)
But not (4)
Reasons for popularity with boys = (5)
Attempts to expand markets to include (6)
and (7)
Largest future market = (8)
To succeed here, it is necessary to (9)
But chief ingredient of video games = (10)

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B. REARRANGING PARAGRAPHS

    EXERCISE 1
    Put the following paragraphs in the right order to make a complete passage and then write a heading for each paragraph. The first has been done as an example.

1. The increase in the life expectancy throughout the world.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

    A. One way of increasing lifespan may be by means of genetic engineering. Scientists have doubled the life of a certain type of fly from 25 to 50 days by using the files that live the longest for breeding. It is thought that the flies have over 100 genes which control the process of aging. Humans probably have more than 1,000 such genes which control the processing of ageing.Humans probably have more than 1, 000 such genes. If some of these can be identified and treated in some way, it may be feasible to delay the ageing process.
    B. The main reason for this increase in average life expectancy over the last 150 years are higher standards of living and improvements in medicine and health care. Nowadays, fewer children die at an early age, doctors can kill many diseases which used to be fatal, and nutritional standards have improved. Many doctors think that future developments in the fight against diseases such as cancer will further raise life expectancy.
    C. However, despite the rise in average life expectancy, there does not seem to have been an increase in maximum lifespan. In other words, more people are living longer today than in the past, but the longest time that anyone lives has not changed much over many centuries. The longest that a human is known to have lived is 120 years; this figure compares with the maximum life expectancies of 150 years for a tortoise and three-and-a-half years for a mouse. The age of 120 years seems to be a limit for human life. The challenge for scientists is to raise this limit.
    D. If you don’t want to bother with these rather unusual ways of increasing your lifespan, you could simply pay attention to the advice given by most doctors, which is to have a balanced diet with lots of fruits an vegetables and to take regular exercise to keep your body fit. In the end, of course, a balanced diet and plenty of exercise may not prolong your life very much, but they should help to ensure that you enjoy it by staying fit and healthy until the end!
    E. People are getting older – an obvious truth, isn’t it? Everyone ages with the passing of time. But there is another meaning to this unavoidable fact. It is that people’s life expectancy is increasing and there are a growing number of people in the world who live longer than ever before. In 1900 there were between 10 and 17 million people aged 65 or older, they made up less than 1% of the world’s population. Now there are about 345 million people in this age group, constituting over 6% of the world's population. Average life expectancy has increased from 26 years 2,000 years ago, to 49 years at the beginning of the twentieth century and to 76 years in many countries today. The Japanese have longest life expectancy, with women living to an average age of 82.5 years and men to 76.2.
    F. Another way in which diet may promote long life is through the intake of vitamin E. This vitamin helps to protect the body from attack by free radicals, which speed up the ageing process. Scientists studying people over 100 years old found that they had high levels of vitamin E in their bodies, while in an experiment people who took extra vitamin E had 40 % less risk of suffering from heart disease than others.
    G. It may also be possible to increase lifespan by altering diet in various ways. In experiments on rats and other animals, scientists have found that reducing the number of calories taken in by the animals actually increases their lifespan. Although this may seem strange, it is supported by the evidence of a small group of people who lived in a specially- constructed environment in order to see how people can adapt to living on another planet such as Mars. These people grew their own food inside the place where they lived, but because of problems with food production their diet was very restricted for several months. Surprisingly, their blood pressure and cholesterol levels fell and the immune systems of their bodies functioned more efficiently than before. There is obvious a limit to the reduction of calorie intake and most people would probably not be very happy restricting their diet in this way, but scientists may discover a way of producing the effects of calorie restriction without causing feelings of hunger.

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EXERCISE 2

Put the following paragraphs in the right order to make a complete passage

Theodore Dreiser

 A. Dreiser first tried his hand at fiction by writing short stories rather than novels, and the first four short stories that he wrote were published. It was rather unusual for a novice writer to achieve so much so quickly. Based on this, he was encouraged to write a novel that would accurately depict the harsh life of the city, and the novel Sister Carrie was the result of his effort. This novel chronicles the life of Carrie Meeber, a small-town girl who goes to Chicago in a quest for fame and fortune. As Carrie progresses from factory worker to Broadway star by manipulating anyone in her path, Dreiser sends a clear message about the tragedy of life that is devoted purely to the quest for money.
    B. After the failure of the novel that was so meaningful to him, Dreiser suffered a nervous breakdown; he was depressed, stricken with severe headaches, and unable to sleep for days on end. Having sunk to a point where he was considering suicide, he was sent by his brother to a sanatorium in White Plains, New York, where he eventually recovered. After leaving the sanatorium, he took a position as an editor for Butterick’s. This company was one that published magazines to promote sewing and the sale of clothing patterns. He was successful in this position, and was eventually able to purchase a one-third interest in a new publishing company, B. W. Dodge, which republished Dreiser’s novel Sister Carrie. This new release of the novel proved considerably more successful than the first release had been. In its first year, the reissued version of Sister Carrie sold 4,500 copies, with strong reviews, and the next year it sold more than 10,000 copies. The recognition that accompanied the success of the novel was based not only on the power of the description of the perils of urban life but also on the new trend in literature that Dreiser was credited with establishing.
    C. Dreiser was born in 1871 into a large family whose fortunes had in the recent past taken a dramatic turn for the worse. Before Theodore’s birth, his father had built up a successful factory business only to lose it to a fire. The family was rather abruptly thrust into poverty, and Theodore spent his youth moving from place to place in the Midwest as the family tried desperately to reestablish itself financially. He left home at the age of sixteen. At this young age, he moved alone to Chicago and supported himself by taking odd jobs. After earning some money he spent a year at Indiana University but left school and returned to Chicago, yearning for the glamour and excitement that it offered. At the age of twenty-two, he began work as a reporter for a small newspaper in Chicago, the Daily Globe, and later worked on newspapers in Pittsburgh, Cleverland, Saint Louis, and New York City. In his work as a reporter, he was witness to the seamier side of life and was responsible for recording events that befell the less fortunate in the city, the beggars, the alcoholics, the prostitutes, and the working poor.
    D. Theodore Dreiser, the American author best known for the novel Sister Carrie (1912), introduced a powerful style of writing that had a profound influence on the writers that followed him, from Steinbeck to Fitzgerald and Hemingway. It was in Sister Carrie that Theodore Dreiser created a fictional account that laid bare the harsh reality of life in the big city and in which Dreiser established himself as the architect of a new genre. This forceful first novel set a new path for American novels at the turn of the last century.
    E. Sister Carrie, unfortunately for Dreiser, did not achieve immediate success. The novel was accepted for publication by Doubleday, but Dreiser was immediately asked to make major revisions to the novel. These changes were intended to tone down some of the starker and more scandalous descriptions. When Dreiser refused to make the revisions, Doubleday published only a limited number of copies of the book and refused to promote or advertise it. Published in limited release and without the backing of the company, the novel was a dismal failure, selling fewer than 500 copies.

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C. INSERTING SENTENCES INTO A PASSAGE

Remember the following tips and hints when do this type of exercises

     EXERCISE 1

Popcorn

    One method of popping corn involved skewering an ear of corn on a stick and roasting it until the kernels popped off the ear. Corn was also popped by first cutting the kernels off the cob, throwing them into a fire, and gathering them as they popped out of the fire. In a final method for popping corn, sand and unpopped kernels of corn were mixed together in a cooking pot and heated until the corn popped to the surface of the sand in the pot.
    This Traditional Native American dish was quite a novelty to newcomers to the Americas. Columbus and his sailors found natives in the West Indies wearing popcorn necklaces, and explorer Hernando Cortes described the use of popcorn amulets in the religious ceremonies of the Aztecs. According to legendary descriptions of the celebratory meal, Quadequinna, the brother of Chief Massasoit, contributed several deerskin bags of popcorn to the celebration.

    Insert the following sentences into the two paragraphs above

1. Native Americans have been popping corn for at least 5,000 years, using a variety of different methods.
Before the sentence
2. A century after these early explorers, the Pilgrims at Plymouth may have been introduced to popcorn at the first Thanksgiving dinner.
Before the sentence

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EXERCISE 2

Lions

    Something unusual about lions is that they hunt in groups. Group hunting is beneficial to lions because it means that much larger prey can be captured by the lions. It also means that individual lions expend much less energy during a hunt.
    There is a standard pattern to the process of hunting in groups. The process is initiated by a single female, who stations herself a raised elevation to serve as a lookout to spot potential prey. When prey is spotted, a group of young lionesses advances on the herd and pushes the herd in the direction of a different lioness who has hidden herself downwind. It is up to this concealed female to choose the weakest member of the herd for the kill.
    As can be seen from this description of the process, it is the females rather than the male or males in the pride that take part in the kill. The younger and stronger females are the ones who go on the attack. While the females are on the attack, the males stay behind to protect the rest of the pride from attack by predators such as hyenas.
    Insert the following sentences into the three paragraphs above:
1. Other cats do not.
Before the sentence
2. This is usually accomplished by knocking their prey to the ground and breaking its neck.
After the sentence
3. Thus, the males have a defensive rather than an offensive role.
After the sentence

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EXERCISE 3

Accidental Inventions

    A number of products that we commonly use today were developed quite by accident. Two of many possible examples of this concepts are the leotard and the Popsicle, each of which came about when an insightful person recognized a potential benefit in a negative situation.
    The first of these accidental inventions is the leotard, a close-fitting, one-piece garment worn today by dancers, gymnasts, and acrobats, among others. In 1828, a circus performer named Nelson Hower was faced with the prospect of missing his performance because his costume was at the cleaners. Instead of canceling his part of the show, he decided to perform in his long underwear. Soon, other circus performers began performing the same way. When popular acrobat Jules Leotard adopted the style, it became known as the leotard.
    Another product invented by chance was the Popsicle. In 1905, eleven-year-old Frank Epperson stirred up a drink of fruit-flavored powder and soda water and then mistakenly left the drink, the spoon in it, out on the back porch overnight. As the temperature dropped that night, the soda water froze around the spoon, creating a tasty treat. Years later, remembering how enjoyable the treat had been, Epperson went into business producing Popsicles.
    Insert the following sentences into the three paragraphs above:
1. They enjoyed the comfort of performing in underwear rather than costumes.
After the sentence
2. It was a taste sensation that stayed on his mind.
After the sentence

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EXERCISE 4

Uranium

    Uranium, a radioactive metal named after the planet Uranus, is a primary source of energy in nuclear power plants and certain nuclear weapons. It occurs naturally in three different isotopes, which differ in their facility in undergoing nuclear fission.
    The three naturally occurring isotopes of uranium are U-234, U-235 and U-238. Each of these isotopes has the same atomic number of 92, which is the number of protons in the nucleus. However, each has a different number of neutrons and thus has a different atomic mass, which is the sum of the number of protons and neutrons.
    Of these three naturally occurring isotopes of uranium, U-238 is by far the most common, while U-235 is the most capable of undergoing nuclear fission. More than 99 percent of all naturally occurring uranium is U-238, while U-234 and U-235 each makes up less than 1 percent. Nuclear fission can occur when a U-235 nucleus is struck by a neutron, and the nucleus splits, releasing energy and releasing two or more neutrons. However, nuclear fission rarely involves a U-238 or a U-234 nucleus because it is unusual for either of these nuclei to break apart when struck by a neutron.
Insert the following sentences into the three paragraphs above:
1. U-234 has 92 protons and 142 neutrons for an atomic mass of 234, U-235 has 92 protons and 143 neutrons for a total of 235, and U-238 has 92 protons and 146 neutrons for a total of 238.
After the sentence
2. These neutrons can create a chain reaction by causing other U-235 nuclei to break up.
After the sentence

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