Reading Comprehension 8th grade I semester

Read the text below and choose headings from A-F that best fits each space

INTEERESTING  FACTS  ABOUT   THE  QUEEN

 The Queen had two birthdays. One was April the 21^st, which was the day she was born in 1926. There was also her official birthday, which was held in June – when the weather is warmer!

 When the Queen was in London, she met with the Prime Minister every week. She met thirteen Prime Ministers in her life, including Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher. 

  You might not want to get in a car with the Queen. Queens and kings did not have to pass a test to drive a car. They also did not need a passport. 

    Elizabeth II first sent an e-mail in 1976. The Queen joined Twitteer in 2009 and Facebook in 2010. The workers at Buckingham Palace tweet daily. They also published her first Instagram post in 2019!

Read the text and decide if the sentences below are true or false

WHY IS SLEEP IMPORTANT?

Getting good sleep is important – actually, it’s just as important for you as eating and sports. If you don’t get enough sleep, then you won’t be able to enjoy life. Games with friends, going skateboarding or even watching You Tube videos will not be fun if you’re tired.

Exercising is more important than sleeping

Read the text again and choose another answer

Getting good sleep is important – actually, it’s just as important for you as eating and sports. If you don’t get enough sleep, then you won’t be able to enjoy life. Games with friends, going skateboarding or even watching You Tube videos will not be fun if you’re tired.

If you don’t have enough sleep you feel tired

People of all ages need sleep, but different people need different amounts. Babies sleep quite a lot. Teenagers usually need about eight or ten hours a night and older people need less – six or even hour. But one person may need more than another even if they are both the same age.

  All people need the same amount of sleep

Six out of ten students say they are tired during the day, which means they are not getting enough sleep at night. So how can you get to sleep? A good idea is to write down what you are thinking about before you go to bed.You can also try counting from 1 to 100 with your eyes closed.

To fall asleep faster you should count the things you are thinking about before going to bed.

Then, make sure your bedroom is as dark as possible and it isn’t too hot or too cold.

It helps to keep your light off when you try to fall asleep

Don’t drink Coke before going to bed and don’t do any sport in the evening. Watching a horror film isn’t a good idea either!

Active exercises can help you to fall asleep easier

Read the text about Oxford and Cambridge and match paragraphs to headings.

The towns of Oxford and Cambridge have some of the finest buildings in Britain. They are famous for their universities, the oldest in England. All the students live and study in colleges. Cambridge has 31 colleges and Oxford has 39. Oxford’s first college started in 1249. Cambridge’s first college opened in 1281.

Before the 12th century, people who wanted a good education went to the Sorbonne in Paris. Then, in 1167, all English students in Paris moved to Oxford. The students went to study in Oxford monasteries and that was the beginning of Oxford University.

The Church was very important in Oxford and Cambridge for many years. For example, until the 19th century the university teachers were almost like priests and they couldn’t marry.

Women started studying later than men. The first women’s college at Cambridge opened in 1869 and at Oxford in 1878. Today, three Cambridge colleges and one Oxford college are for women only. Men and women study together in the others.

People can visit rooms at Oxford and Cambridge when the students are on holiday. Some rooms are modern but the older rooms are more interesting (and more uncomfor­table!). They often have low ceilings, small windows and a view of the square in the middle of the college. Imagine sleeping in the same room as an ex Prime Minister or eating at the same table as Lawrence of Arabia!

Read the text and choose the correct item to complete the sentences below.

Education is an important issue for many people in the UK as well as around the world. In most countries pupils who attend secondary schools take an exam to get a school leaving certificate. One particular worry is why boys are doing so badly. Some twenty years ago, exam scores of girls and boys in a class were compared. Boys got better results in exams. Now, the situation is reversed, with girls getting better scores than boys.

Twenty years ago...

John Dunsford, leader of the Association of Head Teachers in Secondary Schools, says that girls, more than boys, see education as a passport to a good job. On the other hand, according to Penny Lewis, a head teacher, young men are not ambitious enough because some boys grow up in families where there is no father, which means no male role model to follow.

Girls have better exam results than boys because...

Moreover, boys learn in a different way to girls, preferring small amounts of work with short deadlines rather than large projects extended in time. In a study by UNESCO, girls did better than boys at reading at the age of 15 in all 45 countries.

 Boys differ from girls in...

Also, in a study by UNESCO, there was the information that the UK took the ninth place among the 45 countries in reading skills, although pupils in the UK spend less time reading than in most other countries. Interestingly, the study also sug­gested that British children read for pleasure more often than those in other countries.

2  The study by UNESCO showed that British children ...