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SKIMMING (KỸ NĂNG ĐỌC LƯỚT)
WHAT IS THE SKIMMING?
Skimming is a fast reading technique. It involves selective reading of the most
important parts of the text in order to:
 Find out how the text is organized- that is, the way it is divided into sections or
paragraphs.
 Get a general idea of what the text is about.
 Decide if the text is interesting and whether you should read it in more detail.

Skimming is done at a speed three to four times faster than normal reading.
People often skim when they have lots of material to read in a limited amount of time.
Use skimming when you want to see if an article may be of interest in your research.
Hints and tips for skimming the passage
 Read the title, subtitles and subheadings to find out what the text is about.
 Look at the illustrations to give you further information about the topic.
 When you are skimming a passage for a general understanding, don’t try to
understand every word. Jump from paragraph to paragraph, finding the main
point in each paragraph before moving on to the next paragraph, like jumping
across stepping stones in a river. The main point of each paragraph is often,
through certainly not always, the first sentence in each paragraph. The sentence
with the main point is often called the topic sentence. Taken together, the topic
sentence of a passage should provide a reasonable summary of the passage.
 When you are looking at sentence to understand the main points, try to find

the mainly words in the sentence, namely the subject, the verb and the object
of the main clause. Try to ignore the other the other words, particularly the
relative clauses and adverbial clauses.
Examples:

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 Whale oil, rendered from the blubber, was used originally for lamp fuel and
later as a principle ingredient of soap, margarine, paint oils and lubricants.
While skimming, it is enough to understand that: (this) oil was used for
(something)
Or, say you are skimming this sentence:
 Tea plants are grown on tea plantations, called gardens or estates, in
areas that have a great amount of rainfall and rich loamy oil.
It is enough to understand that tea plants are grown on/in somewhere/
somehow. If you later find a question that relates to this sentence, you
can come back and read it more intensively.
 When you have finished skimming to passage, skim the questions. You
need to know how many question there are and approximately. What
the questions are about. You can now practice skimming. To
encourage you to skim as quickly as possible, there is a suggested time
limit.
Task types using skimming skill are:
-

Heading matching


-

Getting the main idea

A. HEADING MATCHING
WHAT IS A HEADING?

A Heading covers the main
ideas of the paragraph

Tactics for heading matching
 Reading all the headings and underline or highlight the key words.
 Read the first paragraph of the passage, marking the topic sentence and
related phrases and vocabulary.
 Re-phrase the main idea of the paragraph in your mind.
 Read the list of headings to see if there is a match between the key

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words and the headings and the words you have marked in the paragraph
 Choose the heading that best summarizes the main idea of the first
paragraph
 Go on to the next paragraph and repeat the process.
 If you think two heading fit one paragraph, mark both of them and rule
one of these out later.

Exercise 1: which of these three headings states the main idea in the

paragraph? Use the highlighted key words to help you decide.
Time limit: 1 minute
a. Population figures for China
b. Assessing China’s farmland
c. Global population and the future
The world’s population is forecast to reach 7.5 billion by 2020, and growing
prosperity, especially in China, is fuelling a rising appetite for meat and
cereals. Yet it is becoming harder to find new farmland, water is increasingly
scare and crop-yield growth is slowing. Already 167 million children are
malnourished. Are hungry times ahead?
1. How did the highlighted words help you?
2. How do the verb tenses help you find the answer?
3. Can you explain why the other headings are attractive, but wrong?
Exercise 2: look at these three headings
A. Britain’s modern motorway system
B. Roman principles relevant today
C. 6000km of Roman roads
As quickly ass possible decide which of the headings best matches the
paragraph, taken from a reading passage, below
Time limit: 1 minute
Between 43AD and 81 AD Roman Britain acquired 6000km
network of technically advanced, hard bearing and straight highways

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linking towns of importance. Today Britain’s motorway system is only
half that length. The basic Roman philosophy of building a road to cope

with different types and volumes of vehicles and using local materials
where possible still applies today.
Exercise 3: look at the passage “difficulties commonly experiences by oversea
students”. Three are six sections A-F. Choose the most suitable heading for each
section from the list of headings below. Write the appropriate number (i-iv) in the
lines.
Note: there are more headings than sections so you will not use all of them. Use may
use any of the heading more than one.
Time limit: 5 minutes
Example

Answer

Section A

iv

1

Section B

4

Section E

2

Section C

5


Section F

3

Section D
List of headings
i.

Personal finances

ii.

Language and communication

iii.

Being different and apart

iv.

Cultural adjustment

v.

Study –related concern

vi.

Family support


vii.

Getting around

viii.

Living independently

Difficulties commonly experienced by oversea students

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The problems experienced by oversea students are now generally well documented.
The issues that cause the greatest difficulty can be summarized as follows:
A……………………………………………….
This involves getting used to the new country and different way of life, customs, and
values. In addition, students also have to deal with the sense of loss ( missing family,
friends, familiar food and places). These issues are usually referred to by the term
“cultural shock”.
B…………………………………………………
Managing on a limited budget is a challenge for most, but it is especially so for people
living in an unfamiliar environment. Students may have to pay for education and
living expenses, find a reasonable place to live and, in some cases, a part time job to
supplement any scholarship or money from home.
C…………………………………………………
Many students are not used to looking after themselves. At home, parents and family

usually assist them in coping with shopping, cooking, personal finances and general
managing their affairs. Oversea, all of these things must be done without the family’s
support.
D…………………………………………………
Even some of the students who have been educated in an English language school
have problems communicating freely at university level. Many students find reading
and writing in English especially difficult. Participating in classroom discussion and
asking questions of staff often produce difficulties.
E………………………………………………………
Differences in the style and traditions of learning between Western and Asian
countries frequently cause difficulty. Many overseas students find it difficult to adapt
to Western notions of independent thinking and learning. Students from some

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countries may also have difficulty because they lack experience in using wellequipped libraries and laboratories.
F…………………………………………………………..
This refers both to experiences of racial intolerance and the relatively low level of
contact that overseas students have with local people. Students often report being
uncomfortable about generalized discrimination in a later section of this book.
Unit 2 SCANNING
What is the scanning?
Scanning is the method to use when you need to search a passage quickly to locate the
specific information you need to answer each question

When you are scanning to locate some specific information (e.g. names, places, dates,
specific phrases), it is not necessary to read and understand every word in the passage.

When you look at some sentence, you need to understand only enough to answer the
question: is it what I am looking for or not? So you only need to understand the topic
of each sentence. For example, you see this sentence:
Example
Like perfumes, cosmetics were originally used as an adjunct to religious ritual, the
ceremonial aspects gradually being lost as both men and women adorned themselves
with cosmetics.
 You locate the subject of the sentence ‘cosmetics’ and that is enough. It
is not necessary to read all the details. You know that this sentence
probably does not contain the information you need, so you quickly
move on to the next sentence. This is scanning.

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Hints and tips for better scanning
1. Don’t try to read every word. Instead of let your eyes move quickly across the
page until you find what you are looking for
2. Use clues on the page, such as heading and titles , to help you
3. In a dictionary or phone book, use the header words to help you scan. You can
find these on bold type at the top of each page
4. If you are reading for study, start by thinking up or writing down some
questions that you want to answer. Doing this can focus your mind and help
you find the facts or information that you need more easily.
5. Many texts use A-Z order. These include everyday materials such as the phone
book and indexes to books and catalogues.
6. There are many ways to practice scanning skill. Try looking up a favorite
recipe in the index of a cookbook, search for plumber in your local yellow

pages, or scan web pages on the internet to find specific information.

Exercise: which of these types of text would you scan? Which would you skim? Tick
the appropriate box:
Types of text

skimming

scanning

1. A phone book
2. A newspaper article
you are interested in
3. The film review
page when looking
for a particular film
4. A letter from the
bank
5. A list of results for
an exam you’ve
taken

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When scanning, guide your eyes across the page by using your first 3 fingers, or
your index finger alone, or even the tip of a pen or pencil. This will prevent your
eyes from wandering about on the page. You can increase your general reading speed

too, by following your finger with your eyes across the page as you read. Many
studies prove how much quicker people read when guiding their eyes across the page.
You might be surprised to discover how much faster you will be reading.
D, MULTIPLE CHOICE
TACTICS FOR MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS
 Underline or highlight the key words in the question and the four questions.
 Quickly read the sentences that contain the main ideas in each paragraph of the
passage.
 Rule out any options in the questions that you think are definitely wrong.
 Decide which option is correct.
Exercise 1: The text below has been edited to highlight the areas that you might read
when skimming or scanning a text. Read through it quickly and answer the following
multiple-choice questions.
Time limit: 3 minutes
GOODNESS, GRACIOUS, GREAT BALL OF FIRE
In the first of a new series, Alan Watts tackles the science of thunder and lightning
A. Despite our modern sophistication and advanced warning system, the
thunderstorm still provokes a primitive dread in most people. It is not only our
helplessness in the face of nature’s wrath that produces fear, but also the eerie
listlessness that settles over animals, birds and people in the build-up to a
storm. Yet the kind of storm with a sultry calm before its arrival is just one of
many kinds of thunderstorm associated with a particular kind of weather.

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B. The kinds of intense storms that develop on hot sultry days are a mass of
individual storm cells.

“cell-theory”

of

storm

…………..

“multicell”

……….

“supercell”

………..multicell ……….. daughter-cells……….
C. Then in spring, when the sun is warming the earth but the air is still cool, great
towering cumulonimbus clouds often develop and these can become thundery.
……… “air-mass” …………… thunderstorm France …………….. English
Channel………..
D. If you’ve lived in the coastal regions of southern Britain, then you’ll be
acquainted with a special kind of storm that comes up from France a couple of
times a year.
…………………………. Spanish plume storms sierras of Spain ‘sheetlightning’…………………
E. Whatever the cause of a storm, there has to be lightning ………………..
pressure

waves …………….

electric


charge

……………..

raindrops

………………. Positively charged ………………… slivers of ice……………
F. It is estimated that there are some 1,800 storms going on at any one time
somewhere in the world – mainly in the tropics – and that the electric current
induced by the lightning from these compensates for the more-or-less
continuous drift of positive ions from the ionosphere to the earth, so balancing
the atmosphere’s electric current.

1. What is the article about?
A. Fire
B. Weather
C. Science

2. Which of the following areas do you think the writer will discuss?
A. Animals and their environment
B. Modern danger warnings

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C. Types of storm
D. What to do in bad weather
Exercise 2: Look at the letter below and the following questionnaire. Complete the

questionnaire about Carlo using the information given in the letter. Choose the one
letter for each answer.
Time limit: 4 minutes
Dear Sir,
I received a communication from you today asking me to complete a question to help
determine the spending habits of the population. I would willingly do this but you
failed to enclose the aforementioned questionnaire. In order to assist you, I will send
you some details of my lifestyle, which you can use to fill in the questionnaire at your
office on my behalf.
Although I have been living in England since coming to study for my A levels, I spent
my early childhood in Australia. I am not British as my father was born in Poland and
my mother in Italy and we all hold Australian passports.
I studied for my first degree at Leeds University but am now doing postdoctoral
research in Electrical Engineering at the University of Easthampton. As I am
presently not earning a regular salary, my expenditure is kept to a minimum. I am not
a house owner and am currently living in the halls of residence at my university. I pay
a subsidized rent, which is inclusive of all utilities, so I do not have to worry about
gas, electricity or water bills. I tend to eat mostly in the university canteen so I only go
shopping in the local supermarkets about once a fortnight. At the very least I spend
ten pounds but I usually pay about twice that each time. Designer clothes are not in
my budget nor do me frequently high street stores. I prefer to wear used clothes,
mostly from charity shops. If they are not perfect I manage to repair them myself. My
one real extravagance is electrical equipment. I have a state of the art sound system
and a wide screen flat panel television with DVD facilities, which I bought less than a

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year ago and I am still paying for it every month on my credit card. This is rather an
expensive pastime as I really only use them about twice a week.
Concerning transportation, since I live on campus, I walk to my office or the library
but if I travel into town, I sometimes take the special university bus or more likely I
cycle. I did have a car when I began my doctorate but sold it when the cost of its
upkeep became prohibitive.
As for entertainment, I occasionally go to the theatre, I play football three times a
week, I swim everyday and I go for dinner to a local restaurant once a month.
If you should require information about my life, either contact me here at the
university or send me a questionnaire which I can personally complete in full.
Yours faithfully,
Carlo Tulinski
SIMPSON SURVEY SERVICES
British lifestyle questionnaire
Please complete the questionnaire by circling the appropriate option or giving details
of your personal lifestyle.
1. Where do you live?
A. England

B. Northern Ireland

C. Scotland

D. Wales

2. Please state your nationality…………………………
3. Please state your current professional status
A. students
D. civil servant


B. self-employed

C. private employee

E. unemployed

4. What is your level of education?
A. basic compulsory education
B. completion of secondary education

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C. first degree attained
D. post graduation degree attained
5. Where do you live?
A. own house/ flat

B. rented house/ flat

C. student accommodation

D. rented room in private house

E. commercial accommodation
6. How often do you shop for food?
A. everyday


B. every week

C. every two weeks

D. every month

7. What is your average supermarket bill?
A. ten pounds

B. twenty pounds

C forty pounds

D. eighty pounds

8. What kind of clothes do you prefer?
A. From chain stores
B. From local markets
C. Home made
D. Second hand
E. Designer wear
9. How do you prefer to pay for expensive items?
A. in cash

B. by installments

C. by cheque
10. How do usually travel in cities?
A. by car


B. by train

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D. by bicycle

E. on foot

F. by motorbike

11. What is your favorite leisure activity?
A. watching TV

B. listening to music

D. going to theatre

E. doing sport

C. eating out

Exercise 3: look at the questions below, scan the passage then choose the best
answers.
Time limit: 3 minutes
The first black literature in American was not written but was preserved in an oral

tradition, in a rich body of folklore, songs and stories, many from African origins.
There are humorous tales, Biblical stories, animal stories, and stories of natural
phenomena, of good and bad people and of the wise and foolish. Many reflect how
African Americans viewed themselves and their lives. The lyrics of blues
spirituals, and work songs speak of suffering and hope, joy and pain, loved ones,
and religious faith, and are an integral part of the early literature of black people in
American.
The earliest existing written black literature was Lucy Terry’s poem “Bars fight”
written in 1746. Other eighteenth –century black poets include Jupiter Hammon
and George Moses Horton. The first African American to publish a book in
American was Phillis Wheatly. Black poetry also flourished in the nineteenth –
century, during which the writing of almost forty poets were printed, the most
notable of whom was Paul Laurence Dunbar, the first black American to achieve
national acclaim for his work. Dunbar published eight volumes of poetry and eight
novels can collections of stories.
More than three dozen novels were written by blacks between 1853 and 1899, but
autobiography dominated African-American literature in the nineteenth century, as
it had in the eighteenth. In the twentieth century, however fiction has presided,
with Charles W. Chestnutt, American’s first black man of letters, successfully

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bridging the two centuries. He began publishing short fiction in the mid 1880s,
wrote two books that appeared in 1899, and had three books published between
1900 and 1905. He was a pioneer of the “new literature” of early 1990s, which
aimed to persuade readers of the worth and equality of African Americans.
1. Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the passage as part of the oral

tradition of African Americans?
A. Humorous tales
B. Tales of adventure
C. Biblical stories
D. Animal stories
2. According to the passage, the lyrics of blues and spirituals are often concerned
with
A. the pain an joy in life
B. loved ones and animals
C. Religion and nature
D. Wise and foolish people
3. According to the passage, an important part of early African Americans
literature was
A. Novels
B. Short fiction stories
C. Biographies
D. Songs
4. According to the passage, when did the first written African American
literature appear?
A. In the 1600s
B. In the 1700s
C. In the 1800s
D. In the 1900s
5. According to the passage, who was the first African American to receive
national recognition for his writing?
A. Paul Dunbar

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B. George Horton
C. Lucy Terry
D. Phillis Wheatly
IV. Reading the passage and choose the best answer to each question
Humanitarian Dorothea Dix was born in Hampden Maine, in 1802. At the age of 19,
she established a school for girls, the Dix Mansion school, in Boston, but had to close
it in 1835 due to her poor health, she wrote and published the first of many books for
children in 1824. In 1841, Dix accepted an invitation to teach classes at a prison in
East Cambridge, Massachusetts. She was deeply disturbed by the sight of mentally-ill
persons thrown in the trail and treated like criminals. For the next eighteen months,
she torn Massachusetts institutions where other mental patients were confided and
reported the shocking conditions she found to the state legislature. When
improvements followed in Massachusetts, she turned her attention to the neighbouring
state and to the West and South.
Dix’s work was interrupted by the civil War, she served as superintendent of women
hospital nurse for federal government.
Dix saw special hospital for the mentally ill built in some fifteen states. Although her
plan to obtain public land for her cause failed, she arouses concern for the problem of
mental illnesses all over the United State as well as in Canada and Europe.
Dix’s success was due to her independent and thorough research, her gentle but
persistent manners, and her ability to secure the help of powerful and wealthy
supporters.
1. In what year was the Dix Mansion school closed?
A. 1822
B. 1824
C. 1835
D. 1841
2. Why did Dorothea Dix first go to a prison?


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A. She taught classes there
B. She was sent there by the state legislature
C. She was convicted of a crime
D. She was doing research for a book
3. Where was Dorothea Dix first able to bring about reforms in the treatment of
the mentally ill?
A. Canada
B. Massachusetts
C. The West and South
D. Europe
4. Dorothea Dix was Not successful in her attempt to
A. Become superintendent of nurse
B. Publish books for children
C. Arouse concern for mentally ill
D. Obtain publish land
5. At what point of the passage does the author discuss specific reason for Dix’s
success
A. Lines 19-21
B. Lines 14-16
C. Lines 12-13
D. Lines 17-18

REFERENCES
What is reading for reference?

Successful reading means being able to see the relationship between different words,
that is, being able to match information rather than understand isolated words. Look at
the following example.
How do humans produce speech? First the brain issues a command to the lungs to
initiate an airstream. Before this stream can become speech, however, it must pass

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through, or by, the larynx, pharynx, tongue, teeth, lips and nose _ all of which can
modify the airstream in various ways.
You might understand every word in the paragraph but you need to see the
relationship of the words to one another to be a successful reader. You have to see
what “it” and “all of which” relate to. “It” relates to “the airstream” and “all of which”
relates to “the larynx, pharynx, tongue, teeth, lips and nose”.
The most typical example of matching information is matching reference, that is, how
one word refers to other words. If you cannot understand all the references, you
cannot understand the passage. There are many types of referece.
1. Pronouns: (he, she, it, they, himself, herself, this, that, these, what, who,
where)
Many people wrote to complain.
We received about twenty calls a day.

They particularly objected to….
These range from requests

for….
The hospital receives insufficient funding.


This is a major problem.

He asked if I could lend him a torch.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have

one.
2. Auxiliary verbs: (e.g. do/did, have/had, can/could, will/would)
We all tell white lies occasionally.
You need to pay the fee now.

Life would be difficult if we didn’t.
If you can’t, please let us

know.
They asked me to help.

I said I would.

3. There, then, so, much…
At the beginning of the 19th century….

Things were very different

then.

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You may experience symptoms of nausea.

Such symptoms are not

uncommon.
4. Parallel expressions
His fellow mathematicians

his colleague

Feelings of anger and betrayal

strong emotions.

5. Articles
A survey….( First reference)

the survey …. (later reference)

How can you find the references? Reference words are in many cases pronouns
such as “it”, “them”, “they”, or “this”. When the reference word is a pronoun, look for
a previous noun that might match the pronoun. Make sure that they match in gender
(male or female), number (singular and plural), and case (is the word a subject, an
object or possessive?). replace the pronoun with this noun and check to see if the
meaning is possible. For example, in the sentences above, when ‘her’ is replaced with
‘Sandra” the sentence makes sense. Therefore ‘ her’ refers to ‘Sandra’.
Sandra’s closest friends are Amy and Lee. They study with her at the
university.

Sometimes to understand a reading passage we need to work out the link
between the ideas correctly. This link is not always expressed by reference words but
by elliptical devices. Let’s have a look at the following example.
The main purpose of a resume is to convince an employer to grant you an
interview. There are two kinds.
In this sentences, “two kinds” means “two kinds of resume”
Notes:
 When answering reference questions be aware that the noun closest to the
reference word may not be always the correct answer.

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 Reference words may refer to a noun or a noun phrase made up of several
words.
 Reference words may refer to the nouns in the following sentences.
Examples of this type are indefinite pronouns like “something”,
“someone”….ect.

Exercise 1: Read the following sentences and state what the underlined
words refer to
1. Once in the café you must buy something, so you spend your last fifty centimes on
a glass of black coffee with a dead fly in it.
2. You spend your last eighty centimes on half a liter of milk and you are boiling it
over the spirit lamp
3. The city’s busiest underground station- St. Paul’s in Cheapside- unlocks its gates.
To get there on time, the station foreman, John Milne, has to come in by bus from
Good Mayes in Essex.

4. The tiny number of residents -7500, many of them caretakers, 4000 of them living
in the Barbican- is suddenly and dramatically increased.
5. The city’s working day ends earlier than most of the rest of London. That’s
reasonable, it starts earlier.
6. Good husbandry – forest ecology, wisdom in planning, less greed and stupidity –
could keep man and the delicate rain forest relationship in balance indefinitely.
This is our last great store house…our last wonderland.
7. Birthmarks, once almost untreatable, are a mass of blood vessels and, being red,
they absorb the laser beam strongly. It seals them so that the mark becomes
conspicuous.
8. Britain, though, is one of the leaders in the laser treatment of bleeding peptic
ulcers and this, combined with new medicines can mean ulcer treatment without
conventional surgery.
9. When you think that you too might be asked to pay two sous extra, and would
have to confess you could not, you bolt in panic. What could you not do?

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10. Many people clutch when asked to think about their abilities,. Some think that
they have none at all. But everyone does, and one of yours may just be the ticket
an employer would be glad to punch- if only you show it. Everyone does what?
One of your what? What does it refers to?
11. Before writing a resume, take four or five hours off, not necessarily consecutive,
and simply write down every accomplishment in your life, on or off the job, that
made you feel effective. Don’t worry at first about what it all means. What does it
prefer to?
12. When you are satisfied, send your resume to printer, a printed resume is far

superior to photocopies. It shows an employer that you regard job hunting as
serious work, worth doing right. What does it refer to?
13. To be fair to all concerned, the film was made in Greece, partly in the USA and
partly in Britain, and that probably explains why so many filled so seemingly
identical roles. What does that refer to?
14. In determining the shape and content of his narrative, the writer of prose fiction is
constrained by nothing except purely artistic criteria. This does not necessarily
make hos task easer than that of the writer of plays and screenplays.
15. Tiger moths are covered with highly conspicuous oranges and black or yellow and
black patterns of sport and stripes, such boldly patterned colour combinations
are commonplace in animal world, serving the function of forewarning potential
predators of unpleasant tastes and smell.
16. Detergents clean clothes by first removing particles of dirt from the fabric, then
suspending the particles until they can be washed away.
17. A number of sculptors have rejected the abstractions of minimalist artists. These
sculptors have developed a style of extreme realism involving ordinary subjects.
18. The details information in maps is now produced almost entirely from satellite
photography rather than by ground surveying because this method is faster,
cheaper and more accurate.
19. Ruth sat three- hour papers- algebra and geometry, calculus, probability and
statistics, and math, pure and applied. I was happy with the first two, she said
yesterday, but I wasn’t sure about the third.

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20. The major educational distinction between on campus and distance teaching is the
reliance on group based strategies in the former and the obligation to

individualise instruction the latter
Exercise2: read the following passage and state what the underlined words
refer to
The flows of illegal immigrants have persisted in a number of countries. These
flows have been fostered by the demographic imbalance between the developed
and developing countries, differentials in economic growth, employment
opportunities and wages, and a demand for low-wage workers in a number of
developed countries.
Although some countries have sought to strengthen the sovereignty of their
frontier through such measures as the extension of visa requirements and
increased checks on employers to ensure they have not hired illegals, illegal
immigration still continues.
For example, the scale of illegal immigration to the United States is massive. It
has been estimated that three million illegals enter the united stated successfully
every year with perhaps twenty five per cent of them remaining permanently.
What do the underlined words refer to?
1. “these” in paragraph 1:……………………………………….
2. “their” in paragraph 2:…………………………………………
3. “they” in paragraph 3:………………………………………….
4. “them” in paragraph 4:…………………………………………….
Exercise 3: read following passage and state what the underlined words
refer to
The local café is as much of an institution in Poland as the local pub in some
English speaking countries. Even small towns and large villages have cafes,
and in the cities there are hundreds of them. They are always well patronized,
the reason being that local cafes are ideal spots for meeting friends and for
stopping at during long walks. They also have the right atmosphere to
entertain, the privacy to discuss business and the convenience simply to gossip
for a while over a glass of wine or an espresso coffee and piece of cake. For


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retired people, spending a few hours at a café over a cup of coffee watching
other people is probably better entertainment than watching television. When
poles go out to spend some time with friends, especially when they date or
meet informally, they prefer to go to a café than to a restaurant. They either
stay there for the whole evening or proceed to other places.
Most young people in Poland enjoy similar form of entertainment as their
peers in English speaking countries. These include popular music concerts,
discos, movies, sporting events- soccer being by far the most popular sport in
Poland – and attractions available in the city and local center. People with
children , as elsewhere, tend to go out less, especially if they do not have
parents or in-laws to look after the children. They tend to go for walks in local
parks or visit other people with children.
What do the underlined words refer to?
1. “them” in line 5:……………………………..
2. “they” in line 7:………………………………….
3. “they” in line 13:………………………………………
4. “there” in line 14:………………………………………….
5. “their” in line 15:………………………………………
6. “ these” in line 16:………………………………………………
7. “they” in line 19:…………………………………………….
8. “they” in line 20:……………………………………………..

Exercise 4: read the following passage and choose the right answer for each of
the reference words
George Lucas’s star wars changed the direction of America film with some of the

most ingenious special effects contrived for movies of its time. Twenty two months
needed to design the equipment and more than 1000 story boards for effects
sequences.
A special computerized camera, called a Dykstraflex, was designed to give the
illusion of real screen movement. This system, controlled by the camera operator,

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enabled him or her to pan, tilt, and track around the model, always keeping it in focus.
The breakthrough was the camera’s ability to repeat the identical movement from shot
to shot, thus the effects sequences could be built like a music track; layer upon layer.
The illusion was complete: none of the spaceships in star wars ever moved- only the
camera did.
The star-field backdrop in space was by punching holes in black Plexglas. More than
75 models were constructed, with astonishing detail work. On the rebel blockade
runner artists built a tiny cockpit, all done to scale. The miniaturized laser canons were
fully motorized to swivel and tilt by the remote control. The light sabers were foursided blades coated reflective aluminum, attached to a small motor. When retated,
they created a flashing light later enhanced by animation.
1. The word “some” in line 2 refers to
A. American film
B. Direction
C. Movies
D. Special effects
2. In line 8, “ this system” refers to
A. The creation of an illusion
B. Screen movement
C. Panning and tilting around a model

D. A special computerized camera
3. The word “ it” in line 9 refers to
A. Model
B. Camera
C. Focus
D. System
4. The word “ they” in line 19 refers to
A. miniaturized laser canons
B. artists
C. four-sided blades

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D. seventy-five models
Exercise 5: read the following passage and choose the right answer for each of the
reference words.
Planes are subjected to drag forces because an object moving forward through the air
is hampered by it to greater or lesser extent, since the air or any gas has friction. A
plane in subsonic flight is preceded by the pressure waves it creates as it makes its
way through the air. These pressure waves push away the air in front of the plane so
there is less drag than would otherwise be the case. But when a plane reaches sonic
speed, or the speed of sound, the pressure waves no longer precede the plane. They no
longer push away any of the air in front of the craft, so the drag forces become much
greater. The large rise in drag as the plane approaches Mach 1, or the speed of sound,
is referred to as the sonic barrier.
Even a conventional subsonic plane travelling at the speed below Mach 1 can
encounter an extreme rise in drag. This is because the pressure over the wing is

decreased as the wing moves through the air. This results from the increase in the
speed of the air stream over the wing in accordance with the law of physics called
Bernoulli’s principle.
1. The word “ it” in line 2 refers to
A. Drag force
B. An object
C. The air
D. A plane
2. The word “ it” in line 3 refers to
A. a plane in subsonic flight
B. a pressure wave
C. air or any gas
D. drag force
3. in line 7, the word “ they” refers to
A. planes reaching sonic speed

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