English Revision 1

Reading Comprehension (Practice 1)

Read the following passage and then answer ALL the questions given.

Jasmin goes to her grandmother's house in the kampung.

Jasmin awoke to the twittering and chattering of birds outside. Looking around, she realized
where she was and an overwhelming sadness engulfed her. This was a room in her grandmother's house
in the kampung, the house in which she had grown up. Her grandmother had looked after her from the
time she was a baby. When she was three months old her mother left her with her grandmother and
went to join her father who was studying overseas. Jasmin's parents wanted her to come and live with
them but she was not keen to do so as she was still very much attached to her grandmother. Her parents
allowed her to stay on in the kampung. They did not want to upset her as she was happy in the
kampung school and she was doing well there.

When Jasmin was in year six of primary school, her younger sister was born. Her parents
thought that it was important for the two sisters to be together and so Jasmin went to live with them
after she completed her primary school. She adjusted easily to her new secondary school and she was
pleased to have a baby sister to look after and play with. She wished that her grandmother would join
her family, but the old lady preferred to stay by herself in her own house. Jasmin visited her
grandmother during the school holidays.

Jasmin sat up slowly and glanced at her sister beside her who was still asleep. Quietly she rolled
up the mengkuang mat on which she had lain and put it away behind the clothes rack. She took her
towel from the rack and moved towards the door. The wooden floorboards creaked slightly as she
stepped into the living room. It was bare except for a cardboard box in one corner. There was
something in that box that once belonged to her grandmother and which was now hers. It was a tepak
sireh. Jasmin's parents had asked her to choose something from the house as a memento. Jasmin's eyes
blurred with tears. Her grandmother had passed away of a heart attack four months ago.

Jasmin opened the kitchen door that led into the compound. She was going to the bathroom.
There was a well in the bathroom. Before the availability of piped water, the well served all their
domestic purposes. Wanting to feel the cool well water on her face again, she lowered the pail into the
well and expertly pulled up the attached rope. There it was a pail full of refreshing ground water for
her. She remembered that it had been her duty to draw water from the well every evening to water the
potted plants that her grandmother had arranged neatly in front of the house.

Emerging from the bathroom, Jasmin strolled around the old house for the last time, and with
a heavy heart. It was a traditional Malay house, built on posts above the ground. The raised floor kept
dampness away and the spaces between the floor planks provided good ventilation. Jasmin used to play
with her childhood friends in the space beneath the house. At that time they were small enough to stand
beneath the house without having to stoop. They whiled away the hours playing congkak or batu
limbang.

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 Jasmin walked past the verandah with its large windows. She rounded the corner and noticed
the front bedroom windows were open. Apparently, her parents were awake. She went back into the
kitchen. Her mother was preparing breakfast. They were returning home later in the morning after
handling over the house to its new owner. Jasmin's father who inherited the house decided to sell it.

After breakfast, they loaded some things into the car and waited for Encik Adam, the new
owner, to arrive. Jasmin's sister was impatient to get back to their own home whilst Jasmin longed to
linger at that old house for a few more hours. Encik Adam arrived punctually at the appointed time.
Jasmin's father gave him the house key. They chatted for a while and then Jasmin and her family got
into the car for the journey back to home. As they drove away, Jasmin looked back at the old house and
bade a silent farewell to her childhood.

1. From paragraph 1,
(a) Which word means to be plunged into something? (1 mark)
(b) Why was Jasmin left in the care of her grandmother? (1 mark)

2. Jasmin's parents decided to allow her to stay on with her grandmother.

Give TWO (2) reasons for their decision. (4 marks)

3. From paragraph 2, what event prompted Jasmin's return to her parents? (2 marks)

4. From paragraph 4, what purpose did the well serve after the installation of piped water?
(1 mark)

5. From paragraph 5, what are the advantages of building a house on posts? (4 marks)

6. In your opinion, why do you think Jasmin wanted to linger at the old house for a few more
hours? (2 marks)

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Reading Comprehension (Practice 2)
Read the following passage and then answer ALL the questions given.

In 2006, haze from fires on Sumatra and Borneo islands spread across large areas of Southeast
Asia for months, polluting skies and frustrating Indonesia's neighbours. The situation was bad enough
to prompt the governments of Singapore and Malaysia to warn people to scale down outdoor activities.
At its worst, the air pollutant index hit 160 in Kuala Selangor and 221 in Sri Aman, Sarawak. A score
of 101-200 is considered unhealthy. Cloud seeding operations were conducted over the peninsular to
clear the haze. More than 200 respiratory illnesses were reported in Kuching, including more than 50
asthma cases.

The looming environmental and health threat was the hot topic at the fourth meeting of the sub-
regional Ministerial Meeting on Trans-boundary Haze Pollution held in Putrajaya in April 2006, hosted
by the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry and attended by environment ministers and
officials from Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and Brunei. Participants are prepared for the worst.
Malaysia and Singapore do not have detailed plans on how to cope with the haze. The Asean
Specialized Meteorological Centre had forecast that the prevailing La Nina was expected to gradually
weaken and return to neutral conditions in the third quarter of 2008. If weather patterns hold, the
number of hot spots in Indonesia is expected to shoot up and cause choking haze, the kind which
blanketed the region for months in 2006.

The Head of the Malaysian Nature Society Environmental Education Department said the public
needed to be alerted in advance if the haze situation was going to worsen in 2008. Schools should be
told not to carry out educational programmes to alert children to the issue and to prepare them on how
to mitigate the effects of haze. The Department of Environment should have a list of dos and don'ts. In
previous years, schools were issued last minute warnings not to have any outdoor activities.

The ministers agreed that member states should be vigilant and undertake concrete actions,
particularly on preventive and mitigation efforts. Malaysian Natural and Environment Minister said
Malaysia was also preparing to face the dry spell in the wake of the prediction. We have started
monitoring all hot spots and illegal burning within the region and in the country. Awareness
programmes and enforcement would also be intensified in the country.

The long awaited memorandum of understanding for collaboration between Malaysia and
Indonesia in the Riau province will be signed in June 2008 to tackle haze related problems in the area.
With the MOU, capacity building programmes on zero burning techniques, an early warning system
and peatland management activities will be carried out jointly by the two countries with various
stakeholders in Riau.

Indonesia issued a statement whereby they said they had cut down on the number of hot spots by
51 percent in 2007 in both Sumatera and Kalimantan compared with 2006. Indonesia has targeted to
reduce the number of hot spots by half in 2009, 75 per cent in 2012 and 95 percent in 2025. It was also
noted that the Indonesian government and private sector had significantly increased the budget
allocation to more than 800 billion rupiah ( RM 2.8 million) for land and forest fire control for 2008.
Indonesia has one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world. Emissions from deforestation and
in particular peatland, which is made up of semi decomposed vegetation have made Indonesia the
world's worst carbon emitter, behind the United States and China.

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1. What kind of illness is asthma? (1 mark)

2. From paragraph 2, which phrase suggests that the haze attracted a lot of criticism?
(2 marks)

3. From paragraph 3, what steps should the Department of Education take? (2 marks)

4. From paragraph 4, what are the two main efforts to be undertaken by member nations to
reduce the haze problem? (2 marks)

5. What does MOU between Malaysia and Indonesia focus on? (3 marks)

6. From paragraph 6, of all the measures taken by the Indonesian government to tackle the
haze problem, which suggests that the Indonesian government is serious about tackling the
problem? Support your answer with a reason. (5 marks)