versantparta-readingpracticepassages

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Reading practice passages:

Passage one:

Nicky Hart argues that the increasing divorce rate can be seen as a 'product of

conflict between the changing economic system and its social and ideological

superstructure (notably the family)'. In advanced capitalist industrial societies,there is an increasing demand for cheap female wage labor. ives are encouraged

to take up paid employment not only because of the demand for their services, butalso because the capitalist controlled media has raised 'material aspirations' ! the

demand for goods that families desire. "hese material aspirations can only besatisfied by both spouses working as wage earners. However, conflict results from

the contradiction between female wage labor and the normative e#pectations whichsurround married life. 'orking wives' are still e#pected to be primarily responsible

for housework and raising children. In addition, they are still e#pected, to somedegree, to play a subservient role to the male head of the household. "hese

normative e#pectations contradict the wife's role as a wage earner, since she is nowsharing the economic burden with her husband. $onflict between the spouses can

result from this contradiction, and conflict can lead to marital breakdown.

Passage two:

If a couple decides to divorce, a number of ma%or transitions of lifestyle and outlookhave to be made. & series of interviews which obert eiss carried out with

divorced men and women in the showed a definite 'tra%ectory of divorce' (eiss,*+-). omen suffer from a divorce far more than men on an economic level, but

the process of psychological and social ad%ustment seems similar for both se#es. Inthe ma%ority of instances eiss studied, the respect and liking a couple may have

felt for one another disappears some while before they separate. &t the same time,a sense of being bound emotionally to the other person persists. "hus even though

a couple may row bitterly %ust before parting, they tend to e#perience what eiss

calls separation distress. "he sudden absence of the spouse creates feelings ofan#iety and panic. & minority of individuals however have an opposite e#perience !

a feeling of euphoria in response to being free and able to deal with their lives on

their own.

Passage Three:

&s laws and procedures regulating divorce have altered, the divorce rate has tendedto increase by leaps and bounds with each new piece of legislation making divorce

more readily available, the rate has risen rapidly for a time before leveling off."oday there is one divorce in /ritain for every three marriages. (In the & the rate

is one in two.) 0any people have suggested that the higher divorce rates reflect an

underlying increase in marital instability the problem with this argument is that wehave no way of knowing how many 'unstable' or 'unhappy' marriages e#isted beforelegislation made it possible to dissolve them in a public (and recordable) form.

ome commentators have gone further, and argued that more permissive divorcelaws in themselves cause marital breakdown. /ut we can certainly be skeptical of

such a view, suggesting as it does that happily married couples can suddenly bepersuaded to abandon their relationship, propelled by the attraction of a new

divorce law. & more plausible e#planation for rises in the divorce rate after thepassage of a law is that unhappily married couples were for the first time given


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access to a legal solution to pre!e#istent marital problems in other words, changesin divorce laws are less likely to cause martial breakdown than to provide new types

of solution where breakdown has already occurred.

Passage four:

Halloween is one of the most famous holidays in the .., and it is on 1ctober 2*.3eople carve pumpkins and make funny faces on them. "hese are called 45ack!1!

6anterns.4 1n 1ctober 2*, children wear a special costume such as a witch, ghost,or clown. "hey go to many houses and they knock on the door saying, 4"rick or

"reat74 It means that if people don't give them a treat, they will play some kind oftrick on the household. o, usually people give candy to them.

I carved my first Halloween pumpkin at my 8riendship 8amily's house. 8irst, I cut

open the top of the pumpkin and pulled the seeds out. It was not good for mebecause it was sticky and smelled bad. I had never carved a pumpkin, so it was

interesting for me. Ne#t, I carved the eyes and the mouth. I wanted to make a facelike a pirate. hen I finished making the face, I put a candle inside. It was very

beautiful, so I was happy.

I had a good e#perience because I learned one new idea about &merican culture bytaking part in it. I think Halloween is an interesting &merican holiday which involves

all family members and neighbors too7

Passage Five:

"ime is very important in our lives. It organi9es our everyday moments. However,time never had any importance in my life until I received a watch from my father

that organi9ed my life and made me more responsible.

It came from :enmark to the .&.;. %ewelry shop in a gray bo#. It weighs < o9. It's

round in the center with two silver bands that go around my wrist. &nd all of it ismade of silver. "his ob%ect tells me the importance of time in my life.

I received this gift on a gray!sky day. I had to go to the airport at +=>> &0 to pickup my ncle &li and take him to my father's house. However, I was late because I

was hanging out with my friends. 6ater on that day, around **=>> &0, Iremembered my uncle, but I was very late for him. He had left the airport and

taken a ta#i to my father's house.

I got to my father's house at ?=>> 30 on the same day and looked at my angryfather's face. I felt ashamed of myself at that moment. &fter I said hi to my angry

father and tired uncle, my father asked me to sit ne#t to him where he handed me

this watch which was a gift from him. "hen he said, 4;ssa did you have fun withyour friends today@4 I answered, 4Aes father, and I'm sorry about not picking up myncle &li.4 He said, 4hat you did was not very nice and you should be sorry for

your actions.4 I was ashamed and said, 48ather I'll never do it again. I promise.4 Hesaid, 4I hope today you learned something important, and this watch will be a

reminder for you.4 He told me to take this watch and use it as an organi9er of mylife.


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I learned a very important lesson from my father= to respect time and never be lateto get someone. "his watch is important to me, not because of its price, but

because of the lesson that I learned from it.

Passage Six:

"hree years ago on the last day of 5anuary, I had a big problem. I can't forget thisday forever. "he story began when my uncle, my cousin, and I went to the desert.

0y uncle was the oldest at ? years old, but he was still strong. 0y cousin at thattime was *> years old, and I was ?B years old. &ll of us liked hunting. sually we

went hunting on the weekend, especially in winter, because winter is the huntingseason.

1n the ?Bth of 5anuary, we decided to go hunting. &ll things were ready in the car,

a ange over with four!wheel drive. e began on "hursday afternoon, and it tookus three hours by car. e reached the place we were looking for at B=*B 3.0. 8irst,

we fi#ed the tent, then we made coffee and had a few minutes of rest. &fter that,we left to go on the hunt. e hunted using a falcon. 1ften, we hunt birds and

rabbits. e spent two hours without finding anything. e decided to go back to thecamp. 1n our way back, my cousin saw a rabbit. He cried, 4abbit77 abbit7 Cuick74

I took the falcon's head cover and flung it off aggressively. hen the rabbit saw thefalcon, it ran fast, but my falcon was a professional hunter. He flew up and came

down to trick the rabbit. &fter two minutes, the rabbit was caught. e took it andwent back to the camp where we started to cook our dinner. e ate the delicious

food, drank &rabic coffee, and sat around the fire talking until *>=2> 3.0. "hen wewent to bed.

e left camp the ne#t day at o'clock in the morning. e went north and found

two kinds of birds and caught them. However, we faced trouble at *>=>>&.0.because the car got stuck in the sand7 e spent about three hours trying to pull out

the car without any progress. 8inally, we decided to walk. I talked with my uncle

about how hard it is for an old man or a young boy to walk more than D> km. in thedesert. He agreed with me. o I took a bottle of water with me and started to walk

south alone. I knew the way well, but it was a long way in the sand. I walked more

than four hours without stopping. I felt tired and thirsty. I drank all the water whichwas in the bottle. I stopped to rest, sleeping around two hours.

hen I got up, darkness had covered the area. 4hat should I do@4 I asked myself.

I continued to walk south. I was worried about my uncle and cousin, and they wereworried about me also. uddenly, I met a /edouin man who was riding his camel.

He took me to his house. hen I had had enough rest, I asked him to take me tothe road and he did. &fter that, I found a car which took me to the city to get help.

I had one day to get back to my uncle and cousin. hen I got back to them, they

were so happy because I had gotten help and they were able to see me again.

;ventually, I learned a lesson from this story, which was that the desert is very

dangerous. Ne#t time, when we go hunting, we must go in groups with two or morecars. If we go together, we can keep each other safe. e know the desert is

dangerous, but we will never Euit hunting.

Passage Seven:


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6anguage is a way to communicate with each other. e started to learn language

when we were born. However, people are used to speaking their native language,

so immigrants are having many problems between the first generation and thesecond generation because they don't have the same native language. &lso, the

second generation is losing their identity. ;specially in &merica, there are many

immigrants that came from different countries to succeed in the tates. /ecausethey suffer in lots of areas such as getting a %ob and trying to speak ;nglish, they

want their children to speak ;nglish, not only at school, but also at home in order tobe more successful. /ecause of this situation, their children are losing their ethnic

identity and, even more, they are ignoring their parents whose ;nglish is not verygood.

8or e#ample, my aunt, who has been living in $hicago for fifteen years, has three

children and they were all born in the tates. "he eighteen year old daughterspeaks ;nglish as a native language and she speaks Forean very well too. he has

no problems talking with her parents, but she still doesn't understand Forean %okes,and there are sometimes misunderstandings. "he second daughter is fourteen years

old, and she doesn't want to speak Forean. 0y aunt often gets upset with herbecause she is very &mericani9ed and they cannot understand each other. ;ven

when my aunt punishes her, this daughter does not understand what my aunt istalking about. I felt sympathy for my aunt whenever my fourteen year old cousin

said, 40om, what is your problem@4 "he third child is a twelve year old son. Hespeaks ;nglish to his parents and my aunt speaks Forean to him as she does to the

second daughter. He also has a problem communicating with his parents. 0y auntis trying to teach him to speak both languages very well, but it is very hard for him

because he speaks ;nglish all day and does not understand why he should learn tospeak Forean.

I think most immigrants are trying to preserve their native language in their new

country, but this doesn't help very much in getting a good %ob. 0y aunt didn't teach

Forean to her children in order to help them succeed in the .. she did so,hopefully, to help them establish a Forean identity. "hough the second generation

is born in the new country, they often get confused about their identity because

they look different from others, and also, if they visit their parent's country, theywill probably feel different from other people there too. 0y cousins told me that

when they visited Forea a few years ago, they felt different from other Foreans."hey could even feel it %ust strolling around the street because they wore different

clothes and walked differently.

e must reali9e that language is important and valuable for many reasons.Immigrants should make an effort not to be ignored by their children and to make

their children understand their heritage by teaching them the parents' language.

"his is very important, not only for the harmony of the family, but also in helpingthe second generation establishes their identity.

Passage Eight:

Have you ever thought that within a single afternoon you could lose your sense ofsecurity@ Have you ever taken into consideration changing completely the way you

look at the world around you@ "hat happened to me, and I'm still paying for theconseEuences of somebody else's action. "he feeling of security and serenity, that


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everyone should have, is often taken away with brutality for the price of a fewdollars. nfortunately, this happens over and over throughout the world, and it is

hard for the victims of criminal actions to recover from their deep wounds.

It was %ust a day like any other, if possible, even better because it was a aturday,

the end of the working week, and one of the first nice and sunny days of ome's

spring. 0y best friend and I were in the shop that she owns. It was the middle ofthe afternoon we were both pretty happy and making plans for the weekend, and

the atmosphere was e#tremely rela#ed, almost la9y. uddenly a man entered in theshop. e knew, somehow, that he didn't look like one of our usual customers, but

we welcomed him politely anyway. ithout any hesitation he pulled something outof his coat that we did not recogni9e immediately, but when he ordered us to go

into the back with him, there was no doubt that this 4something4 was a gun. ewere so scared that we could barely understand what was going on. 0y heart was

beating so franticly, that I thought everyone could hear it. uddenly, while watchingthe entire scene in astonishment, a shiver ran down my spine. I had that kind of

feeling like when you are not sure if you're dreaming or not. In the beginning, Ithought it was a stupid %oke by a similarly stupid friend of ours, but it took me half

a second to reali9e that it was cruel reality. I still shudder at the thought of it. Heseemed to me so calm and so used to this kind of action. 4:on't you dare say a

single word and come with me in the storage4 he said. It was almost a whisper, afew simple words uttered nastily. He gave us precise orders and while doing this, he

offended us and kept reminding us that he could shoot at any time. He looked forthe money in the register, from our wallets, then he asked for our %ewelry and we

gave him all he wanted. He was imperturbable while bringing his 4%ob4 toconclusion. &t that point, he was supposed to leave instead, he seemed not to

have any intention to do so. uddenly I remember his face becoming soaked insweat. 0y friend and I had no chance to talk to each other and e#change our

thoughts, but I'm sure we had the same horrible feeling. 8ortunately, after a fewinterminable minutes he left.

Aou can never know where you can feel safe growing up you learn that gradually.hen you are a child, you feel safe with your parents in your home or wherever

you are not alone. "hen you begin to understand the news and you learn that

horrible things are happening 4out there4, but you still keep thinking that thoseevents are %ust other people's worries, not yours. "errible things happen only to the

people you read about in the newspaper, but you will soon start to e#plore theworld on your own and little, insignificant, nasty things begin to happen to you too.

Aou see a car accident, you look at ambulances, someone is mean to you and,somehow, you know that this is as the world goes. "hen your conscience starts to

make you reali9e that you are a person like any other. o why couldn't bad thingshappen to you@ Aou are afraid that something could happen and, depending on your

optimistic or pessimistic mood, you can deal or not with this thought.

I think that from the precise moment the guy walked out of the shop, I completelychanged my way of relating to the world. omeone could say that I am

e#aggerating, and maybe they are right, but this is how I feel. I always look aroundto see which kinds of people are possibly following me. Now I usually double!check

everything= if I've locked myself in the car or in the house. I think about how todress if I have to go out alone or in a particular part of the town I am always

careful not to wear any %ewelry. henever an unknown guy is getting too close or istrying to get information from me, I tighten up. I know that it is wrong, that not


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everyone is looking to attack me again. &fter all, I consider myself lucky, sincenothing really bad happened to me or to my friend, but what affects me is the

thought of what could have happened. e could have died or he could have beaten

or raped us7 I know that I have to work on it because since that day I haven't feltsafe anymore, hat I don't know is where to start. Now I am sure only of one fact,

that I blame this guy, not for having taken my %ewelry, but for having deprived me

of my innocence.

Passage Nine:

"o sing a song has been deeply related to human life from ancient times. 3eopleen%oy singing songs to babies and they en%oy listening to them. In recent years,

there has been a boom in 4karaoke4 in 5apan. Faraoke includes disk players withvoice mi#ing facilities and are used to provide musical accompaniment for solos or

singalongs. "he 4kara4 of kara!oke means empty, while the 4oke4 is a 5apaneseabbreviation of the ;nglish word, 4orchestra.4 "hese two words coming together

mean an orchestra without a vocalist. Faraoke systems are widespread in manycountries nowadays. I think 4karaoke bars4 are well known by &mericans, so they

imagine karaoke bars when they hear 4karaoke,4 but actually we have few karaokebars in 5apan. hat we call 4karaoke bo#4 is more popular in 5apan.

Aou can see many buildings, which say 4karaoke bo#4 here and there in 5apan. "he

karaoke bo# consists of a lot of isolated rooms on several floors and each of thoserooms has a karaoke set in it. Aou can go there with friends or with your family to

en%oy singing. No strangers can see you or listen to you singing. 0any people, nomatter what their age or gender, go there often to en%oy singing out loud, to seek

relief from daily stress or %ust for fun. ;veryone can be a singer for that moment.

"o relish karaoke is not difficult at all. &ll you have to do is find some friends to gowith you and then you will be ready to have fun. &fter that, maybe you want to go

to hin%uku, one of the metropolitan parts of 5apan, to find your karaoke bo#.

hin%uku is a place where mainly fashionably dressed youths gather. "here arehuge shopping malls, video centers, various kinds of restaurants, movie theaters

and many kinds of amusement around the hin%uku station. It is very crowded,

especially on weekends, and you can hardly walk through the area. Aou also seetons of karaoke bo#es there. /ut don't worry if you don't know where to go because

people who work at those karaoke bo#es are on the street, too, and they will comeup to you and talk to you. ince all karaoke staff want to have as many customers

as they can, they introduce you to the kinds of service they have in e#aggeratedand cheerful voices, or they offer you a discount to visit their karaoke bo#. "hey

usually wear uniforms with bright colors and are very trustworthy, so that you candecide on a place to visit without having difficulties. Generally they charge you one

or two dollars per person, per hour if it's daytime and they show you the way and

get a room for you.

&ll Faraoke bo#es are set up in a similar way. "he room has some couches, two

microphones, remote controls for the air conditioner, karaoke set, menus for snacksand drinks, thick song books on a table, and a big " with karaoke system %ust for

you and your company. "he room also has a telephone that is connected to thereception desk therefore, you can order some food or drinks from that phone. "hey

will also call you when your time is up.


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&fter you have settled into the room and gotten something to eat or drink, you areall ready to sing. Aou look up one of the songbooks and choose a song you wish to

sing. Aou can look up the songs in two different ways. 1ne side of the book has the

titles of the songs, names of singers and five or si#!digit code numbers followingthem. "he other side of the book starts with singers' names, titles and numbers, o

that you can look up songs either by the singer's name or title of the song. &fter

you choose a song to sing, enter the code numbers of the song into the remotecontrol by pushing the buttons on it to send information to the karaoke set. oon

your music will start. "he remote control also has a section to change the key ortempo of the songs. If you feel the key of the song is too high or low for you, or too

fast or slow, you can ad%ust them as you want. &lso, if you want to have harmony,you can. ome karaoke sets even have a voice change system. Aou can change

your voice from a woman's to a man's, and a man's to a woman's. "his is veryinteresting. hen you finish singing, you can search for the ne#t song while another

person is singing. "his is how it goes, but the important thing here is you shouldlisten to other people singing at the same time. sually people like to have

audiences, and you want them to listen to you while you are singing, too. Aou canfeel like a real singer if you have someone to listen to you, and that's what people

like when doing karaoke.

ince you will have your own room and there will be no unfamiliar people watchingyou, you will feel more comfortable singing in a karaoke bo# than singing in front of

many people, like in karaoke bars. Aou can spend the time in a more rela#edatmosphere, which is more en%oyable. Aou can sing a duet with your friend if you

want, and you can dance if you like, but this doesn't mean that you can dowhatever you want or misbehave in the room. "here are several rules to protect

your personal rights and to ensure that you en%oy yourselves comfortably. Aoushould not go look into other rooms. Aou can't smoke or drink if you are under

twenty. "hough there are no specific people who patrol the bo#es because theydon't want to make their customers feel nervous, it is important to follow these

rules for everyone to have a good time.

1nce you have e#perienced karaoke, you might want to go again and again, though

some people would not like singing in front of people even if they were friends or

family. /ut in my opinion, you can still have a lot of fun there, even if you don'tsing. e make %okes and we talk as if we were at home. I personally like karaoke

very much. I like singing and I have so much fun every time I go. I think we areseeking a way to e#press ourselves to people whom we like, and we want to say,

46isten to me7 I am here74 Faraoke allows us to e#press who we are and what welike. I encourage you to try it once in your life. 6et's go sing7 It is so e#citing. Aou

can be a singer7

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