Improve Your Reading 1. [antikvár]

Introduction Improve Your Reading is intended for those in the early stages of learning English. It contains 22 passages ranging from 200-250 words in length. The totál vocabulary used, amounting to a little over 600 words, is listed at the end of this book. The passages meet the requirements of the grading scheme for Rangé 3 of the Macmillan Ranger series of graded readers. Learners who tackle this book successfully will therefore alsó be able to read and enjoy the books at Ranges 1-3 of the Ranger series. Grammatical structure has been similarly controlled. Thus, only simple past, present and future, past and present continuous, and present perfect tenses have been used, all of them in the active voice. Each of these tenses receives particular attention in one or other of the early passages: the simple past tense is used repeatedly in Passage 1 for example, the future tense (with 'will') is used in Passage 2; in Passage 5 the focus is on the present continuous tense, and so on. The passages in the first half of the book are linguistically easier than those in the second half: sentences are rather shorter, and subject-matter is more concrete; but the passages are not otherwise arranged according to any strict order of difficulty. It has been the intention of the writer to provide teachers and learners with a number of different examples of the ways in which English is used. To this end the passages include narrative and descriptive accounts, and stories of a journalistic kind, monologues, advertisements, letters both official and personal, and rhyming verses. Many of the passages, somé of the stories, monologues, and verse in particular, are suitable for reading, and recalling orally. Others lend themselves to silent reading, and individual study. Two exercises, A and B, are provided after each passage. Exercise A is a test of the learner's understanding of the passage. It takes the form of a series of questions of a multi-choice kind. Exercise B is a test of the learner's understanding of sentence structure, of vocabulary, or of the correct use of different parts of speech. In most cases, this exercise is, again, in multi-choice form. Answers to these exercises are given in a separate section at the end of this book. Writing exercises are alsó supplied, in which the learner is required to answer open-ended questions, complete sentences, and write at greater length, in his own words. The complete text of Improve Your Reading, the passages and the exercises based on them, is recorded on a sixty-minute cassette tape.