Circle the correct answer

CONTENTS

Introduction

Unit 1

Faces in the floor

Unit 2

Ship of the desert

Unit 3

Staying alive

Unit 4

Shoes

Unit 5

Whales

Unit 6

Annette Kellerman

Unit 7

Hijack

Unit 8

Salvador Dali

Unit 9

Levi Strauss

Unit 10

Computer crime

Unit 11

The picture

Unit 12

Finding the criminal

Unit 13

Esperanto

Unit 14

Basketball

Unit 15

Frozen food

Unit 16

The Great Wall of China

Unit 17

The Hindenburg Airship

Unit 18

Coca-Cola

Unit 19

Picnics

Unit 20

The Kangal

INTRODUCTION

The New Century Readings series is a new concept in supplementary reading practice for Intermediate students. Each reader provides students of English as foreign language with a highly motivating, carefully selected series of articles on a wide variety of topics.

All of the articles have been specially written to conform to a carefully graded vocabulary. British English spelling and grammatical constructions are used throughout the series.

LANGUAGE CONTROL

The language control is based on an analysis of the word lists and grammatical and functional English syllabuses currently in use, and follows on, with adequate revision, from courses used in Elementary classes. It assumes the students have completed an Elementary Level course.

New Century Readings is organized into 5 levels:

Level Core New words Extent of Passage Number of

Vocabulary per Unit Units

1 300 5 up to 150 20

2 600 6 151 – 250 20

3 900 7 251 – 300 20

4 1,200 8 301 – 350 20

5 1,500 9 351 – 400 20

Level One: 300 Core words

At this level, the 300 most commonly used words in English are used freely, and 5 or 6 new words are introduced in each unit to meet the content requirements of the articles.

Level Two: 600 Core words

The same control is exercised at this Level as at the Level One except that the number of words that are used freely is increased to 600, and 6 or 7 new words are introduced in each unit.

Level Three: 900 Core words

The same control is exercised at this Level as at Level Two except that the number of words that are used freely is increased to 900, and 7 or 8 new words are introduced in each unit.

Level Four: 1,200 Core words

The same control is exercised at this Level as at Level Three except that the number of words that are used freely is increased to 1,200, and 8 or 9 new words are introduced in each unit.

Level Five: 1,500 Core words

The same control is exercised at this Level as at Level Four except that the number of words that are used freely is increased to 1,500, and 9 or 10 new words are introduced in each unit.

At each level the new words introduced in the previous level are also used freely. By the end of the course, therefore, the students will have acquired a vocabulary of at least 2, 200 words.

CONTENT

There are 20 articles in each book. The length of the articles increases as the language level becomes more difficult. For example, at Level One the passages are between 150 and 200 words in extent. By Level Five, they are between 450 and 500 words in extent.

The topics are of wide general interest and range from articles about famous people to stories of how well-known brand names, such as Macdonald's, Coca-Cola, etc., came into being. There are 'true' stories from the supernatural; insights into the lives of great composers, writers and artists; fascinating details from the world of fashion and popular music and so on.

The topics have been chosen to satisfy the interests of modern young people. The information contained in each article is also of educational value, and contributes not only to the students' understanding of the modern world, but exposes them to useful, highly 'contemporary' vocabulary not found in more traditional reader series.

EXERCISES

The New Century Readings series has been created in such a way that it can be used as a developmental tool, or, more formally, as texts for improving comprehension skills and acquiring vocabulary.

Except at Level One, at which there are fewer exercises, the exercises follow a similar format in each unit though there are variations to provide variety. They are designed to test not only an understanding of how the new words are used in the context of the passage but to give the students an opportunity to use this new vocabulary in a different context.

The Comprehension exercises require the students to demonstrate that they have understood not only the gist of the passage - what essentially it is all about- (The Main Idea) - but also to show that they have fully understood all the information presented in the passage. These exercises also provide students with opportunities to write correct English.

The Picture Comprehension exercise requires the students to use their understanding of the passage and match it to a visual presentation of an important fact contained in the passage. They are also asked to write simple explanations of why one picture is true about the story and the other pictures are not. This is another form of guided writing and one that many students will enjoy as it has a puzzle element.

Finally, the students must provide a summary of the passage. This exercise requires them to demonstrate their comprehension of the passage as a whole, and also a knowledge of the correct forms of the words to be used.

A key to the exercises is available to teachers. This key also contains the complete word list for all levels of the series.

Ken Methold

Heather Jones

UNIT 1

Faces in the floor

Pre-reading activity

1. Find Spain in your atlas.

2. Can you find Belmez de la Moraleda in your atlas?

3. Name something that frightens you.

One day in 1971 Mrs. Maria Pereira, who lived in the small town of Belmez de la Moraleda in Spain, saw a face in the floor of her kitchen. The face was not painted on the floor. It was part of the floor. “That face wasn't in the floor yesterday,” she said to her son. “Where has it come from?” Her son could not explain so she told him to dig up the floor. He did and then he put down a new floor.

A week later Mrs. Pereira saw another face in the floor, then another and another. Mrs. Pereira told the mayor of the town about the faces. He told some men to dig them up and put them in a safe place.

Over the next few months, more faces came into the floor. The faces changed as people looked at them. Different people saw different faces in the floor. No one knew where the faces were coming from.

At last, the Pereira family dug up the whole floor of their house. They found many old bones under the floor. The house stood on an old graveyard – a place where people put dead bodies.

However, the Pereira's house was not the only house in the village that stood on a graveyard, and there were no faces in the floors of the other houses. Then one day the faces stopped coming. Many people in the town still think they were the faces of the dead.

New words

explain: Can you explain how to do this?

mayor: The mayor is the head person of the town.

safe: In some places it is dangerous to swim in the sea, but in others it is safe.

different:My clothes are different from yours - they are cheaper.

bone:Never give a cat fish with bones in it.

graveyard:A graveyard is a place where we put dead bodies under the ground.

Main idea

Circle the correct answer.

The story is about

1. life in a Spanish town.

2. good places for graveyards.