Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
01
READING COMPREHENSION
TEXT
I like to go out for a walk every day if possible, but I dont always have the time. Its not that Im busy,
sometimes Im simply lazy. When I do go out, though, there is usually one route that I take that takes
me about two hours to complete. While I walk I listen to music, or sometimes to an audio book in a
foreign language. Its a great way to learn and to pass the time! Sometimes I go to the park and do
some people watching, and I suppose some of them watch me too as I walk by listening to music and
maybe even singing out loud. I wonder if they think Im crazy? Other times, I head toward the city and
lose myself in the streets. Since I dont have a car, this is a good way to get to know the city, though
I must admit I still dont know a lot of street names because the signs with the names on them are
on the sides of buildings. Ive always thought that wasnt really the best place to put the sign with the
streets name on it because its not a very convenient place to look, especially if youre driving. They
really should look into a way to make those signs more visible.
EXCERCISE
1.
True
False
2.
True
False
3.
True
False
4. ..............................................................................
..............................................................................
5. ..............................................................................
..............................................................................
6. ..............................................................................
..............................................................................
7.
8. ..............................................................................
..............................................................................
..............................................................................
9. ..............................................................................
..............................................................................
..............................................................................
10.
11. ..............................................................................
..............................................................................
True
True
False
False
EXERCISE
02
READING COMPREHENSION
TEXT
In human beings, a rise in the amount of heat generated results in the dilation of blood vessels close
to the skin, which causes blushing, that characteristic red color of skin, and facilitates cooling. Another
cooling mechanism available to the body is perspiration, which cools the body through the effect of
transpiration as the liquid sweat on the skin evaporates. You can get an idea of how this works by
putting some alcohol on your skin and letting it evaporate. The energy required for the liquid to turn to
vapor is provided by your bodys heat, and thus helps to cool you down. When your body is cold, on the
other hand, it wants to preserve heat. It does this by contracting blood vessels, shivering, which makes
your body shake to generate heat, and by the raising of body hairs, which increases the insulation
provided to the body by the hair.
EXCERCISE
1.
2. ..............................................................................
..............................................................................
3. ..............................................................................
..............................................................................
4.
True
False
5.
True
False
6.
True
False
7. ..............................................................................
..............................................................................
True
False
EXERCISE
03
READING COMPREHENSION
TEXT
The more scientists learn about the world of subatomic particles, the stranger that unseen world
becomes. Because the particles being studied are so tiny, scientists have to rely on indirect observations,
and a lot of ingenuity and mathematical ability, to try to gain some insight into the world of the impossibly
small. And the word impossibly is not there by accident. In fact, some research seems to suggest that
electrons, one of the smallest of subatomic particles, may not even exist as matter, that they may just
be energy fluctuations in the fabric of space and time. And the particles that reside inside the atomic
nucleus may be even stranger still. These infinitesimal bits of matter, called quarks, are supported more
by theory than anything else, since they are too small to be seen by even the most powerful detectors.
And there are particles, called neutrinos, that are so elusive, that the vast majority of neutrinos that have
been created since the Big Bang, the explosion that resulted in the birth of the universe some 13.7 billion
years ago, have never interacted with any other type of matter. But thats not all. Incredibly enough, the
properties of subatomic particles can have an effect on some of the strangest bodies in the universe,
the so-called neutron stars, which are created after the massive supernova explosions that signal the
end of certain types of stars. It is believed that if not for an effect called neutron degeneracy, that every
supernova would result in the creation of a black hole.
EXCERCISE
7. Neutrons
True
False
EXERCISE
04
READING COMPREHENSION
TEXT
The potato is still one of the most important crops in the United States, both in terms of its economy and
in terms of land devoted to farming it. Although the potato was first farmed in the mountainous regions
of South America there are records of Incas cultivating the potato in Peru as far back as 200 A.D. in the
United States it is referred to as the Irish potato. This is probably because of the widespread cultivation
of the potato in Ireland in the 1600s, where it supplied practically all of the population with the food they
needed for survival. Naturally, the large inflow of Irish immigrants to the United States meant that the
potato, too, made the journey back across the Atlantic Ocean, this time to North America. But while
the potato was traveling from east to west, the blight disease was going in the other direction, affecting
nearly 100% of the potato crop in Ireland in the mid 19th century. The destruction of the crop resulted in
the starvation of thousands in Ireland and in the increased prominence of potato farming in the United
States.
EXCERCISE
2. The potato
True
False
EXERCISE
05
READING COMPREHENSION
TEXT
As is the case with many inventions, the first codes were developed for military use, specifically as a
way of sending secure messages to generals in the field. But these codes, which relied on a simple
substitution of letters, were easy to break. So other schemes were soon developed involving increasingly
harder ciphers (cdigos). The mathematical properties of numbers were investigated to give code
makers and code breakers alike more sophisticated tools in their efforts to conceal, or to reveal,
secrets. It wasnt long before mathematicians became as important to winning wars as generals in the
field. In fact, you could argue that without the pioneering work of Englands code breakers, that England
would have eventually fallen to Nazi Germany. You could also argue that it was exactly these same
efforts that led to the development of the modern computer. So it is no surprise, then, that the internet,
which is no more than a vast network of interconnected computers, relies on ciphers to keep our most
vulnerable transactions private. These ciphers, which today are based on prime numbers (numbers that
are divisible only by themselves and by one), are absolutely essential to the vast number of electronic
transactions that take place every day. But code writers know the history of ciphers very well, and they
know that its only a matter of time before even todays ultra-secure communications are compromised.
Thats why they are already working on the next generation of codes, which will rely on the properties of
subatomic particles to keep our secrets hidden from unwelcome eyes.
EXCERCISE
EXERCISE
06
READING COMPREHENSION
TEXT
Some inventions are more glamorous than others. There is no denying the convenience of the cellular
telephone or portable GPS unit, and while both have certainly made life more comfortable, it can hardly
be said that either is absolutely essential to the average person. This is not the case, however, for the
common, and definitely unglamorous, toilet. Yes, that unassuming (humilde) little bathroom fixture is
a marvel of technology, one that people in the first world would truly be hard pressed to live without.
Consider, for a moment, what life must have been like in a large city before the invention of this porcelain
wonder. You dont have to go back too far. Although the Romans, Egyptians and Persians are known to
have had public toilets, which looked much like they do today, their use, especially in private homes, did
not become widespread until the mid-19th century. So, if you were walking down a sidewalk in, say, London
in 1750, you might have heard someone cry out leau (from which the modern word loo is derived), an
abbreviated form gardez leau, from the French for watch out for the water. This would have been your
signal that someone was tossing the contents of their chamber pot (orinal) out the window. Needless to say,
local residents were not aiming the water and the other contents at the sewer (alcantarilla), since there
wasnt any. Instead, wherever the refuse ended up, there it stayed until rain came along to wash it away,
usually into a local river. And whatever didnt get washed away was stepped on by the equine, canine and,
not surprisingly, human residents of the city. So the next time youre walking down a relatively clean street
talking on your phone about nothing in particular and wondering how you ever lived without it, think about
the lowly toilet and how truly essential this invention is to our daily lives.
EXCERCISE
EXERCISE
07
READING COMPREHENSION
TEXT
I cant even remember how many times Ive been to San Jose. The first time was when I was in my
early 20s. I went there to interview for a job, and even though I didnt get the job, I ended up renting an
apartment and staying in the area for about six months. Ive gone back many times since to visit the
friends I made during that stay. Of course, these days with the internet its easy to keep in touch, but I
prefer to go there in person. My best friends in the area are a married couple, Tom and Cindy. It turns out
that they both work at the company I interviewed for, though thats not where I met them. They lived in
the same apartment building as me, one on the floor above mine and the other on the floor below. Now
they have a beautiful house on the bay, a little girl and another on the way. They dont know whether itll
be a boy or a girl, but theyve asked me to be the godfather (padrino), so it looks like Ill be going back to
San Jose in a few months.
EXCERCISE
1.
True
False
2.
True
False
3.
True
False
4.
True
False
5.
True
False
6. ................................................................................
................................................................................
7. .................................................................................
.................................................................................
8.
9. .................................................................................
.................................................................................
10. .................................................................................
.................................................................................
True
False
EXERCISE
08
READING COMPREHENSION
TEXT
Like most other hobbies, stamp collecting can be exhilarating, time-consuming and, for the uninitiated,
overwhelming. Consider this - it is estimated that in the last 100 years alone, close to one billion different
stamps have been issued by governments all around the world. Not only that, but some of these stamps
are as rare, and as expensive, as Renaissance paintings. The most famous is probably the upside-down
airplane stamp, valued at almost 1 million dollars. Also the result of a printing mistake is the worlds
most expensive stamp, the Treskilling Yellow, so called because it was originally worth three shillings
when issued in Sweden in 1855, and because it was supposed to be printed in green, this being the
only known sample in yellow. This stamp was recently sold at auction for 1.7 million pounds, making it
the single most expensive item by weight in the world. Of course, amateur philatelists would do well to
concentrate on a sub-section of the wonderful world that is philately, such as collecting every stamp
issued by a certain government in a year, or collecting every stamp of a particular design, etc. Any other
approach to this hobby is a surefire recipe for frustration and perhaps for ruin.
EXCERCISE
stressful,
time-consuming,
wonderful,
uninitiated..
exciting,
boring,
time-consuming,
overwhelming.
True
False
6. a)
b)
c)
d)
7. a)
1,
2,
3,
4.
only stamps with printing mistakes are
valuable,
b) stamp collecting is an expensive hobby,
c) if you buy a cheap stamp now it could be
worth millions in the 22nd century,
d) a disorganized approach to stamp collecting
will result in disappointment.
8.
True
False
9.
True
False
EXERCISE
09
READING COMPREHENSION
TEXT
While the average European knows more about American history than the average American does about
European history, there is one document that every American school child has heard of that not many
Europeans know about: the Gettysburg Address (en este contexto, discurso). The address, delivered by
Abraham Lincoln at the dedication of a civil war cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, is considered
to be one of the greatest speeches in American oratory, both for its duration -it lasted a little over two
minutes-, and for the legend that surrounds the writing of the brief speech. Contrary to popular belief,
Lincoln did not write the address on the back of an envelope, nor did he write it while on the train ride to
Gettysburg. There are five copies of the Address in Lincolns writing known to exist, though the wording
and punctuation differ in all of them, with the official text of the speech generally considered to be that
found on a version written well after the Gettysburg event on the only copy of the text that Lincoln signed
(known as the Bliss copy). Even the texts of the speech published in newspapers at the time all differed
somewhat. The first few words of the speech, Four score and seven years ago, are synonymous with the
Gettysburg Address, and it is thanks to this speech that Americans know the meaning of the now disused
term score, which Lincoln thought would be more poetic than simply saying eighty-seven years ago.
Of the five copies written by Lincoln, the Bliss copy is in the Lincoln Room of the White House, and two
are in the Library of Congress. It is not known which of the five, if any, was the copy from which Lincoln
actually read the address.
EXCERCISE
1.
True
False
True
False
9. a)
b)
c)
d)
EXERCISE
10
READING COMPREHENSION
TEXT
It may seem hard for us to believe in this, the age of heart attacks and cancer, but one of the most
common causes of death in prehistoric man was tooth decay. At first this may seem highly improbable;
after all, youve likely never heard of anyone dying in the dentists chair. But many thousand years ago,
when dental hygiene was non-existent, the same bacteria that cause tooth decay and cavities (caries)
today would multiply unchecked (desenfrenado) and spread to the tissues (tejidos) surrounding the
mouth, one of those being, of course, the brain. Once there, the bacteria quickly affected brain functions
until the victim died of what today is easily preventable by a simple routine of tooth brushing or a visit
to the dentist. Contributing to this situation was the generally bad health of our early ancestors, who
rarely ate enough high quality food to meet all their nutritional needs. This left their immune systems
weakened and less able to fend off the bacteria that ravaged (devastar) their bodies. These bacteria, in
a more evolved form, continue to attack us today, though for the most part they go unnoticed, killed by
our immune systems or by the many medicines that we have at our disposal. We should not, however,
take dental hygiene for granted (dar por sentado). Although the odds (probabilidad) of dying from tooth
decay are exceedingly low in first world countries, failing to take care of our teeth can still have some
undesirable, and very painful, consequences.
EXCERCISE
prevent,
avoid,
fight,
detect.
1,
2,
3,
0.
True
7. a)
b)
c)
d)
False
EXERCISE
01
READING COMPREHENSION
TEXT
I like to go out for a walk every day if possible, but I dont always have the time. Its not that Im busy,
sometimes Im simply lazy. When I do go out, though, there is usually one route that I take that takes
me about two hours to complete. While I walk I listen to music, or sometimes to an audio book in a
foreign language. Its a great way to learn and to pass the time! Sometimes I go to the park and do
some people watching, and I suppose some of them watch me too as I walk by listening to music and
maybe even singing out loud. I wonder if they think Im crazy? Other times, I head toward the city and
lose myself in the streets. Since I dont have a car, this is a good way to get to know the city, though
I must admit I still dont know a lot of street names because the signs with the names on them are
on the sides of buildings. Ive always thought that wasnt really the best place to put the sign with the
streets name on it because its not a very convenient place to look, especially if youre driving. They
really should look into a way to make those signs more visible.
EXCERCISE
1.
True
X False
2.
True
X False
3. X True
False
7.
True
X False
10.
True
X False
EXERCISE
02
READING COMPREHENSION
TEXT
In human beings, a rise in the amount of heat generated results in the dilation of blood vessels close
to the skin, which causes blushing, that characteristic red color of skin, and facilitates cooling. Another
cooling mechanism available to the body is perspiration, which cools the body through the effect of
transpiration as the liquid sweat on the skin evaporates. You can get an idea of how this works by
putting some alcohol on your skin and letting it evaporate. The energy required for the liquid to turn to
vapor is provided by your bodys heat, and thus helps to cool you down. When your body is cold, on the
other hand, it wants to preserve heat. It does this by contracting blood vessels, shivering, which makes
your body shake to generate heat, and by the raising of body hairs, which increases the insulation
provided to the body by the hair.
EXCERCISE
1.
True
X False
Red.
2. ..............................................................................
..............................................................................
True
X False
5. X True
False
4.
6.
True
X False
3
7. ..............................................................................
..............................................................................
EXERCISE
03
READING COMPREHENSION
TEXT
The more scientists learn about the world of subatomic particles, the stranger that unseen world
becomes. Because the particles being studied are so tiny, scientists have to rely on indirect observations,
and a lot of ingenuity and mathematical ability, to try to gain some insight into the world of the impossibly
small. And the word impossibly is not there by accident. In fact, some research seems to suggest that
electrons, one of the smallest of subatomic particles, may not even exist as matter, that they may just
be energy fluctuations in the fabric of space and time. And the particles that reside inside the atomic
nucleus may be even stranger still. These infinitesimal bits of matter, called quarks, are supported more
by theory than anything else, since they are too small to be seen by even the most powerful detectors.
And there are particles, called neutrinos, that are so elusive, that the vast majority of neutrinos that have
been created since the Big Bang, the explosion that resulted in the birth of the universe some 13.7 billion
years ago, have never interacted with any other type of matter. But thats not all. Incredibly enough, the
properties of subatomic particles can have an effect on some of the strangest bodies in the universe,
the so-called neutron stars, which are created after the massive supernova explosions that signal the
end of certain types of stars. It is believed that if not for an effect called neutron degeneracy, that every
supernova would result in the creation of a black hole.
EXCERCISE
7. Neutrons
True
; False
EXERCISE
04
READING COMPREHENSION
TEXT
The potato is still one of the most important crops in the United States, both in terms of its economy and
in terms of land devoted to farming it. Although the potato was first farmed in the mountainous regions
of South America there are records of Incas cultivating the potato in Peru as far back as 200 A.D. in the
United States it is referred to as the Irish potato. This is probably because of the widespread cultivation
of the potato in Ireland in the 1600s, where it supplied practically all of the population with the food they
needed for survival. Naturally, the large inflow of Irish immigrants to the United States meant that the
potato, too, made the journey back across the Atlantic Ocean, this time to North America. But while
the potato was traveling from east to west, the blight disease was going in the other direction, affecting
nearly 100% of the potato crop in Ireland in the mid 19th century. The destruction of the crop resulted in
the starvation of thousands in Ireland and in the increased prominence of potato farming in the United
States.
EXCERCISE
2. The potato
True
; False
EXERCISE
05
READING COMPREHENSION
TEXT
As is the case with many inventions, the first codes were developed for military use, specifically as a
way of sending secure messages to generals in the field. But these codes, which relied on a simple
substitution of letters, were easy to break. So other schemes were soon developed involving increasingly
harder ciphers (cdigos). The mathematical properties of numbers were investigated to give code
makers and code breakers alike more sophisticated tools in their efforts to conceal, or to reveal,
secrets. It wasnt long before mathematicians became as important to winning wars as generals in the
field. In fact, you could argue that without the pioneering work of Englands code breakers, that England
would have eventually fallen to Nazi Germany. You could also argue that it was exactly these same
efforts that led to the development of the modern computer. So it is no surprise, then, that the internet,
which is no more than a vast network of interconnected computers, relies on ciphers to keep our most
vulnerable transactions private. These ciphers, which today are based on prime numbers (numbers that
are divisible only by themselves and by one), are absolutely essential to the vast number of electronic
transactions that take place every day. But code writers know the history of ciphers very well, and they
know that its only a matter of time before even todays ultra-secure communications are compromised.
Thats why they are already working on the next generation of codes, which will rely on the properties of
subatomic particles to keep our secrets hidden from unwelcome eyes.
EXCERCISE
EXERCISE
06
READING COMPREHENSION
TEXT
Some inventions are more glamorous than others. There is no denying the convenience of the cellular
telephone or portable GPS unit, and while both have certainly made life more comfortable, it can hardly
be said that either is absolutely essential to the average person. This is not the case, however, for the
common, and definitely unglamorous, toilet. Yes, that unassuming (humilde) little bathroom fixture is
a marvel of technology, one that people in the first world would truly be hard pressed to live without.
Consider, for a moment, what life must have been like in a large city before the invention of this porcelain
wonder. You dont have to go back too far. Although the Romans, Egyptians and Persians are known to
have had public toilets, which looked much like they do today, their use, especially in private homes, did
not become widespread until the mid-19th century. So, if you were walking down a sidewalk in, say, London
in 1750, you might have heard someone cry out leau (from which the modern word loo is derived), an
abbreviated form gardez leau, from the French for watch out for the water. This would have been your
signal that someone was tossing the contents of their chamber pot (orinal) out the window. Needless to say,
local residents were not aiming the water and the other contents at the sewer (alcantarilla), since there
wasnt any. Instead, wherever the refuse ended up, there it stayed until rain came along to wash it away,
usually into a local river. And whatever didnt get washed away was stepped on by the equine, canine and,
not surprisingly, human residents of the city. So the next time youre walking down a relatively clean street
talking on your phone about nothing in particular and wondering how you ever lived without it, think about
the lowly toilet and how truly essential this invention is to our daily lives.
EXCERCISE
EXERCISE
07
READING COMPREHENSION
TEXT
I cant even remember how many times Ive been to San Jose. The first time was when I was in my
early 20s. I went there to interview for a job, and even though I didnt get the job, I ended up renting an
apartment and staying in the area for about six months. Ive gone back many times since to visit the
friends I made during that stay. Of course, these days with the internet its easy to keep in touch, but I
prefer to go there in person. My best friends in the area are a married couple, Tom and Cindy. It turns out
that they both work at the company I interviewed for, though thats not where I met them. They lived in
the same apartment building as me, one on the floor above mine and the other on the floor below. Now
they have a beautiful house on the bay, a little girl and another on the way. They dont know whether itll
be a boy or a girl, but theyve asked me to be the godfather (padrino), so it looks like Ill be going back to
San Jose in a few months.
EXCERCISE
1. ; True
2.
True
; False
3.
True
; False
4.
True
; False
5. ; True
False
False
7RLQWHUYLHZIRUDMRE
6. ................................................................................
................................................................................
$WWKHFRPSDQ\ZKHUHWKHDXWKRUKDG
7. .................................................................................
WKHMRELQWHUYLHZ
.................................................................................
8. ; True
False
7RPDQG&LQG\VQH[WFKLOG
9. .................................................................................
.................................................................................
7REHWKHJRGIDWKHUWR7RPDQG&LQG\V
10. .................................................................................
QHZFKLOG
.................................................................................
EXERCISE
08
READING COMPREHENSION
TEXT
Like most other hobbies, stamp collecting can be exhilarating, time-consuming and, for the uninitiated,
overwhelming. Consider this - it is estimated that in the last 100 years alone, close to one billion different
stamps have been issued by governments all around the world. Not only that, but some of these stamps
are as rare, and as expensive, as Renaissance paintings. The most famous is probably the upside-down
airplane stamp, valued at almost 1 million dollars. Also the result of a printing mistake is the worlds
most expensive stamp, the Treskilling Yellow, so called because it was originally worth three shillings
when issued in Sweden in 1855, and because it was supposed to be printed in green, this being the
only known sample in yellow. This stamp was recently sold at auction for 1.7 million pounds, making it
the single most expensive item by weight in the world. Of course, amateur philatelists would do well to
concentrate on a sub-section of the wonderful world that is philately, such as collecting every stamp
issued by a certain government in a year, or collecting every stamp of a particular design, etc. Any other
approach to this hobby is a surefire recipe for frustration and perhaps for ruin.
EXCERCISE
1,
2,
3,
4.
only stamps with printing mistakes are
valuable,
b) stamp collecting is an expensive hobby,
c) if you buy a cheap stamp now it could be
worth millions in the 22nd century,
d) a disorganized approach to stamp collecting
will result in disappointment.
; False
8.
True
9. ; True
False
EXERCISE
09
READING COMPREHENSION
TEXT
While the average European knows more about American history than the average American does about
European history, there is one document that every American school child has heard of that not many
Europeans know about: the Gettysburg Address (en este contexto, discurso). The address, delivered by
Abraham Lincoln at the dedication of a civil war cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, is considered
to be one of the greatest speeches in American oratory, both for its duration -it lasted a little over two
minutes-, and for the legend that surrounds the writing of the brief speech. Contrary to popular belief,
Lincoln did not write the address on the back of an envelope, nor did he write it while on the train ride to
Gettysburg. There are five copies of the Address in Lincolns writing known to exist, though the wording
and punctuation differ in all of them, with the official text of the speech generally considered to be that
found on a version written well after the Gettysburg event on the only copy of the text that Lincoln signed
(known as the Bliss copy). Even the texts of the speech published in newspapers at the time all differed
somewhat. The first few words of the speech, Four score and seven years ago, are synonymous with the
Gettysburg Address, and it is thanks to this speech that Americans know the meaning of the now disused
term score, which Lincoln thought would be more poetic than simply saying eighty-seven years ago.
Of the five copies written by Lincoln, the Bliss copy is in the Lincoln Room of the White House, and two
are in the Library of Congress. It is not known which of the five, if any, was the copy from which Lincoln
actually read the address.
EXCERCISE
1.
True
; False
; False
8.
True
9. a)
b)
c)
d)
EXERCISE
10
READING COMPREHENSION
TEXT
It may seem hard for us to believe in this, the age of heart attacks and cancer, but one of the most
common causes of death in prehistoric man was tooth decay. At first this may seem highly improbable;
after all, youve likely never heard of anyone dying in the dentists chair. But many thousand years ago,
when dental hygiene was non-existent, the same bacteria that cause tooth decay and cavities (caries)
today would multiply unchecked (desenfrenado) and spread to the tissues (tejidos) surrounding the
mouth, one of those being, of course, the brain. Once there, the bacteria quickly affected brain functions
until the victim died of what today is easily preventable by a simple routine of tooth brushing or a visit
to the dentist. Contributing to this situation was the generally bad health of our early ancestors, who
rarely ate enough high quality food to meet all their nutritional needs. This left their immune systems
weakened and less able to fend off the bacteria that ravaged (devastar) their bodies. These bacteria, in
a more evolved form, continue to attack us today, though for the most part they go unnoticed, killed by
our immune systems or by the many medicines that we have at our disposal. We should not, however,
take dental hygiene for granted (dar por sentado). Although the odds (probabilidad) of dying from tooth
decay are exceedingly low in first world countries, failing to take care of our teeth can still have some
undesirable, and very painful, consequences.
EXCERCISE
prevent,
avoid,
fight,
detect.
1,
2,
3,
0.
; False
True
7. a)
b)
c)
d)