Reading comprehension exercises

1. Consult a dictionary and practise the pronunciation of the following words:

dewy, meadow, cartoon, Captain Kangaroo, episode, mass media, influential, environment, catalogue, brochure, credulous, sophisticat­ed, deliberate, addictive, subtle, vicious, altruistic, stimulate, control, advertise, permissible, digest, identify, abbreviate, programme, per­suasively, agency, intellect, design, available, intricate, isolate, giant, conglomerate, audio, contribute, charitable.

2. Practise the pronunciation of the following polysyllabic words paying at­
tention to the principal and secondary stresses:

magazine, influential, psychologically, altruistic, motivation, con­sideration, entertainment, regularity, information, sophistication, appreciation, disapproval, individually, intertwining, governmental, philosophical, educational, intellectually.

3. a) Read out the following observing all the phonetic phenomena of con­
nected speech (assimilation, lateral and nasal plosions, the loss of plosion, the
linking "r").

you accept the media; at the same time; with all this; the permissi­ble and the forbidden; look back at the first two paragraphs; words introduced in the media; even that part of media output; commercial messages inserted throughout; or a newspaper or magazine article; around the advertisements; in either print or electronic media; what the boss's policies are.

b) Practise the pronunciation of the following word combinations containing
the nasal sonant [rj] in the intervocalic position:

sitting in the kitchen; involving subtle conditioning and brainwash­ing; all these negative aspects of growing up with the media; what's going on in the world; the fun of trying out a new product; but there is always that string of jokes; just standing or wandering about a stage; when you were young and absorbing uncritically; accepting a job.

c) Read the following passages: 1) from "The major media can be divided..."
up to "... or pictures demanding attention?" and 2) from "whole new vocabular-

ies come into existence..." up to "... at an advertising agency." Observe the in­tonation group division, stress, rhythm and tempo.

4. Change the sentences below according to the models:

Model 1: The lady lacked tact and manners.

What the lady lacked was tact and manners.

1. He longed for the title of a champion. 2. The man didn't care to go back to his wife. He was afraid she'd talk him to death. 3. The doctor should have tested him for suicidal tendencies.

Model 2: Some TV programmes are very popular. They are watched by a larger audience than others. The most popular TV programmes are the ones that are watched by a larger audience.

1. Some crimes are most disgusting, they are crimes against chil­dren. 2. Old John cherished some of his memories most than others. Those were of his life in Florida. 3. Some people believe they haven't been to the most beautiful places yet.

5. Translate the following sentences into English:

1. Чего ему действительно не хватало, так это чувство меры. 2. Что меня больше всего удивило в Джейн, так это её самообладание. 3. Ему просто не хва­тало знаний по истории этой страны. 4. Подростки часто считают, что наиболее интересные фильмы это те, которые им не разрешено смотреть. 5. Психологи полагают, что наиболее эффективны те замечания, которые вы делаете с глазу на глаз, не на людях. 6. Самыми трогательными сценами в фильме были те, в которых снимались дети. 7. Часто самыми ценными для нас подарками стано­вятся те, которые подарили дорогие нам люди. 8. Я и понятия не имел, куда он метит. 9. Он и не подозревал, что ей нужно. 10. Она и не догадывалась, чем это всё кончилось.

6. Make up two sentences of your own on each pattern.

7. Make up a short situation using the speech patterns.

8. Note down from the text the sentences containing the phrases and word combinations and translate them into Russian.

9. a) Consult a dictionary and make up a list of adjectives beginning with "ill,
e.g. "ill-bred".

Give the Russian equivalents.

b) Translate the following sentences into Russian:

1. He is ill-disposed towards the idea. 2. There is a lot of ill-feeling between the two families. 3. John was ill-humoured that day and could not conceal it. 4. Your accusation is ill-founded. 5. No wonder there is a vacancy, the job is ill-paid. 6. As the piano was ill-tuned the owner had to bring down the price. 7. She seemed ill- suited for the job of TV anchorperson. 8. She was ill-advised to buy that old house. 9. My mother-in-law left the house earlier than she had planned because she was ill-treated. 10. His attempt was ill-fated.

10. Paraphase the following sentences using the word combinations:

1. Who won the race? 2. This is the latest information on the situ­ation. 3. Have you included the latest data into the computer data­base? 4. Linguistics includes a diverse range of subjects such as pho­netics and stylistics. 5. His illness started after that awful accident he was involved in. 6. Teachers are always complaining that many of their pupils have no manners. 7. The suit didn't fit — it was badly cut. 8. Once she'd started eating junk food she couldn't stop. 9. Most children are unable to stop watching TV. 10. Modern cosmology be­lieves the Universe to have appeared about fifteen billion years ago. 11. There are all kinds of opinion on the issue.

11. Make up two sentences of your own on each phrase and word combination.

12. Translate the following sentences into English using the phrases and word combinations:

1. Когда мне нужно принять какое-либо решение, я всегда сначала думаю о семье, а потом уже о карьере. 2. Они используют самое современное оборудо­вание и вычислительные машины. 3. Это учреждение включает в себя функ­ции издательства и типографии. 4. Эта рукопись восходит к XIII веку. 5. Учите­ля Англии жалуются на то, что им мало платят и к ним плохо относятся. 6. К сожалению, вас неверно информировали. 7. Сначала он был уверен, что смо­жет бросить курить, как только захочет, но потом понял, что он уже очень силь­но пристрастился к сигаретам. 8. Закон вступил в действие в 1976 году. 9. За

последние десять лет вошли в употребление многие термины, связанные с ком­пьютерами и новыми технологиями. 10. Боюсь, что Ваше поведение выходит за рамки воспитанного человека.

13. Decide if the following sentences are true or false.

1. Television cannot he called a separate medium as it embraces functions of several media such as newspapers, magazines, movies and recordings. 2. The media influence you all through your life­time and you cannot get away from it. 3. Watching television is psy­chologically addictive. 4. TV commercials stimulate our motiva­tion to buy and determine our choice of trade marks. 5. Luckily children get exposed to mass media at a very early age. 6. All young people growing up with the media learn from them much more than the adults wish them to. 7. Through television we absorb high stan­dards of performance by talented musicians and actors. 8. Though whole new vocabularies have come to existence with the new de­velopments in the media, these are only terms familiar to specialists in the field. 9. The impact of the mass media is overestimated. Little does it change our vocabulary or influence our ideas and attitudes. 10. Most of the media's output is not only cheap but emotionally and intellectually harmful.

14. Finish the sentences in your own words.

1. If your answers parallel those of most young people, you add to the proof that... 2. Parents and teachers agree that.... 3. An experi­ment recently conducted in Europe by the Society for Rational Psy­chology showed that... 4. According to a recent research report.... 5.

Before they are old enough for school. 6. The most powerful ideas

are the ones....... 7. Words introduced in the media frequently en­
large into.... 8. The impact of the mass media is very strong. It changes

..... 9. Some adults, for that matter, either do not know or refuse to

admit the following basic fact of media production:. 10. The own­
er's policies, therefore..... 11. Some of the media's output has....

15. Match the words on the left with the words on the right.

1 a television a stuff

2 the most powerful b our emotions

3 the print * с output

	psychologically	d	response
	absorbed	e	medium
	popular	f	commercial
	a predetermined	g	addictive
	stimulates	h	ideas
	the media's	i	usage
	superficial	J	media

Write ten sentences incorporating these word combinations.

16. Explain what is meant by:

watching television is psychologically addictive; questions involv­ing subtle conditioning and brainwashing; friendly or vicious, altru­istic or self-serving; increasing sophistication of taste and apprecia­tion of technical skills; they (ideas) are digested emotionally at psychological depths; behaviour patterns; words introduced in the media frequently enlarge their meanings far beyond the scope origi­nally intended for them; a predetermined response.

17. Answer the following questions and do the given assignment.

a) 1. How influential a part does the TV play in children's lives? Do recollections of TV programmes provide the most part of the majority of young people's childhood memories? 2. Why do you think people often refer to "the media" when talking about television? 3. Why do the electronic media tend to cause more problems than the print media? 4. Are the additional implications of the word "mass" accurate? 5. How do you think watching television can become ad­dictive? 6. Comment on the meaning of "global village" and how it's connected with the TV. 7. How is it known that some attitudes are absorbed indirectly from the television and then retained? 8. Does the television always achieve its intended predetermined response from its audience? Is it more successful than the other forms of me­dia? 9. How independent are those people working for the television companies? 10. In the last sentence the pros and cons of television are put rather bluntly. Which outweigh the other?

b) The text under discussion is an essay, a short literary prose com­position in which a subject is discussed in a personal manner. The word essay was coined by Montaigne, whose Essais (1580) are infor-

mal and intimate discussions. Behind the essay lie the traditions of oratory and debate. From them all essays inherit their persuasion tech­niques. The essay may usually be identified by certain characteristics of tone, language, and structure. Keeping all above mentioned in mind, study the text and providing illustrations from it discuss the main characteristics of the essay: 1) tone: personal and conversational or highbrow and formal; 2) language: informal and colloquial or official and stylized; 3) structure: loose, flexible or strictly and logically or­ganized; 4) lexical and syntactical devices aimed to persuade: repeti­tion, parallel constructions, homogeneous members of the sentence, rhetorical questions, asyndeton, inversion.

What persuasion techniques does the author use?

18. Give a summary of the text.

19. Media inventory.

a) List all the media you observe in an hour or two in the following places:

1. in the community in general — in the shopping centre or down­town area that you use the most, in the supermarket or grocery store, in any clothing or department store, at the cafe where you stop for meals or snacks. Include signs, billboards, posters, magazines, displays, radios, TVs, and public address system. 2. at school or college/insti­tute, in classrooms, in general areas such as the cafeteria and hall­ways. (Don't include the library. We all know how loaded it is.) 3. at home — in your bedroom, living-room, kitchen.

b) Bring your information to class; sort the material into groups and compile
your information.

1. Was it difficult to remember to notice each medium? 2. Did you find more than you anticipated? 3. Where did you find the most? 4. Which medium predominates in your inventory — print or elec­tronic? 5. What general conclusions did you reach about media?