UNIT 2

PULP FRICTION

Objectives
After learning this unit, you are expected to be able to:
1. skim and scan texts;
2. identify adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions;
3. write a summary of a passage.

Pre reading Activities

Discuss the following questions.
1. What places do you seek on City Map?
2. Do you read City Map to determine the place to visit?
3. How do you read City Map to find certain locations?
4. What do you do to find specific information in a text?
5. Do you need to read the whole reading passage to locate certain information?

Reading Selection

Skimming
Skimming is one of the reading skills that college students need to develop. It is a selective
reading whose goal is to get the general ideas and to become familiar with the topics presented.
Speed is often very important when you are reading. You may have a lot to read, but not much time.
For this kind of reading you usually do not want to know and remember everything. You want to find
out something about it. You can do this by skimming.

You may want to skim:

- Newspaper or magazine articles
- Book covers in a book store (so you can find out if you want to buy the book)
- Library books (so you can find out if they have the information you need)
- Mystery, detective or other novels.

How to skim-read
Below are the procedures of skimming an article or a chapter of a book.
1. Read the title and try to grasp its meaning;
2. Read the introduction. If it is very long, read the introductory paragraphs or read the topic
sentence (the first or the last sentence of each paragraph).

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3. Read any headings and subheadings. Read the summary or last paragraph. Very often, the last
paragraph consists of the conclusion.

Skimming for point of view

Skimming is helpful when you want to find out quickly about the writer. You may want to
find out what the writer thinks about some ideas. This is the writers point of view. When you want
to know the point of view you do not need to read everything. You only need to read a few
important words. Examples:
A. Dogs are often a problem at home. Many dogs are noisy and dirty. They may even be dangerous
for small children. (Does the writer like dogs at home? No. From the underlined words we
can find out the writers point of view )
B. An apartment looks much nicer with some plants. The green leaves make it seem cooler in
summer. The flowers give it happy feeling. (Does the writer like plants in an apartment?
How do you know this? List the important words: ..)

Scanning
Scanning is a very high-speed reading. When you scan, you have a question in mind. You do not
read every word, only the words that answer your question. To scan is to read quickly in order to
locate specific information. The steps involved in scanning are the following:

1. Decide exactly what information you are looking for, and think about the form it may take. For
example, if you want to know when something happened, you would look for a date. If you
want to find out who did something, you would look for a name.
2. Next, decide where you need to look to find the information you want. You probably would not
look for sports scores on the front page of the newspaper, nor look under letter S for the
telephone number of Sam Potter.
3. Move your eyes as quickly as possible down the page until you find the information you need.
Read it carefully.
4. When you find what you need, do not read further.

Skimming Exercise
This exercise practices skimmingthat means reading very fast to find only the main ideas of a text.
You will have a very short time to read the text and identify the main ideas.

Text 2

Pulp Friction
Every second, 1 hectare of the world's rainforest is destroyed. That's equivalent to two football
fields. An area the size of New York City is lost every day. In a year, that adds up to 31 million
hectaresmore than the land area of Poland. This alarming rate of destruction has serious
consequences for the environment; scientists estimate, for example, that 137 species of plant, insect
or animal become extinct every day due to logging. In British Columbia, where, since 1990, thirteen

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rainforest valleys have been clearcut, 142 species of salmon have already become extinct, and the
habitats of grizzly bears, wolves and many other creatures are threatened. Logging, however,
provides jobs, profits, taxes for the government and cheap products of all kinds for consumers, so
the government is reluctant to restrict or control it.

Select the answer you think is correct.

1. The main idea of paragraph one is
A. Scientists are worried about New York City.
B. Logging is destroying the rainforests.
C. Governments make money from logging.
D. Salmon are an endangered species

Much of Canada's forestry production goes towards making pulp and paper. According to the
Canadian Pulp and Paper Association, Canada supplies 34% of the world's wood pulp and 49% of its
newsprint paper. If these paper products could be produced in some other way, Canadian forests
could be preserved. Recently, a possible alternative way of producing paper has been suggested by
agriculturalists and environmentalists: a plant called hemp.

2. The main idea of paragraph two is

A. Canadian forests are especially under threat.
B. Hemp is a kind of plant.
C. Canada is a major supplier of paper and pulp.
D. Canada produces a lot of hemp.

Hemp has been cultivated by many cultures for thousands of years. It produces fiber which can be
made into paper, fuel, oils, textiles, food, and rope. For centuries, it was essential to the economies
of many countries because it was used to make the ropes and cables used on sailing ships; colonial
expansion and the establishment of a world-wide trading network would not have been feasible
without hemp. Nowadays, ships' cables are usually made from wire or synthetic fibers, but scientists
are now suggesting that the cultivation of hemp should be revived for the production of paper and
pulp. According to its proponents, four times as much paper can be produced from land using hemp
rather than trees, and many environmentalists believe that the large-scale cultivation of hemp could
reduce the pressure on Canada's forests.

3. The main idea of paragraph three is

A. Paper could be made from hemp instead of trees.
B. Hemp is useful for fuel.
C. Hemp has been cultivated throughout history.
D. Hemp is essential for building large ships.

However, there is a problem: hemp is illegal in many countries of the world. This plant, so useful
for fiber, rope, oil, fuel and textiles, is a species of cannabis, related to the plant from which
marijuana is produced. In the late 1930s, a movement to ban the drug marijuana began to gather
force, resulting in the eventual banning of the cultivation not only of the plant used to produce the

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drug, but also of the commercial fiber-producing hemp plant. Although both George Washington
and Thomas Jefferson grew hemp in large quantities on their own land, any American growing the
plant today would soon find himself in prisondespite the fact that marijuana cannot be produced
from the hemp plant, since it contains almost no THC (the active ingredient in the drug).

4. The main idea of paragraph four is

A. Hemp is used to produce drugs.
B. Many famous people used to grow hemp.
C. It is illegal to grow hemp.
D. Hemp is useful for producing many things.

In recent years, two major movements for legalization have been gathering strength. One
group of activists believes that ALL cannabis should be legal -- both the hemp plant and the
marijuana plant and that the use of the drug marijuana should not be an offense. They argue that
marijuana is not dangerous or addictive, and that it is used by large numbers of people who are not
criminals but productive members of society. They also point out that marijuana is less toxic than
alcohol or tobacco. The other legalization movement is concerned only with the hemp plant used to
produce fiber; this group wants to make it legal to cultivate the plant and sell the fiber for paper and
pulp production. This second group has had a major triumph recently: in 1997, Canada legalized the
farming of hemp for fiber. For the first time since 1938, hundreds of farmers are planting this crop,
and soon we can expect to see pulp and paper produced from this new source.

5. The main idea of paragraph five is

A. Hemp should be illegal because it is dangerous.
B. Recently, many people have been working to legalize hemp.
C. Hemp was made illegal in 1938.
D. Marijuana is not a dangerous drug.

http://english-zone.com/reading/map01.html
Copyright (C) Kaye Mastin Mallory/English-Zone.com

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Scanning Exercise

Reading a City Map

Use the city map to complete the following sentences.

1. The .. is across the street from the university, next to the beauty shop.
2. The is on the northwest corner of Mackeral and First, across the street from the
university.
3. Calm down! The . is located next to the city jail, on Second Avenue.
4. The . is on Mackeral Boulevard, across from the school. If you get to the university, you've
gone too far.
5. I think that the nearest . is on Third Avenue across the street from City Hospital.
6. The is located on the northeast corner of First Avenue and Mallory Street, next to the book
store.
7. The. is located on Mallory Street, across from the restaurant.
8. How fun! The is on Second Avenue, just east of the library.
9. The .. is located between the bakery and the gas station.
10. The . is located across from the theater, next to the video store.

Grammar Focus

Parts of Speech (2)

1. Adjectives : An adjective is a word that tells us more about a noun. (By "noun" we include
pronouns and noun phrases.)

An adjective "qualifies" or "modifies" a noun (a big dog).

Adjectives can be used before a noun (I like Chinese food) or after certain verbs (It is hard).

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 We can often use two or more adjectives together (a beautiful young French lady).

2. Adverbs :
An adverb is a word that tells us more about a verb. An adverb "qualifies" or "modifies" a
verb (The man ran quickly). But adverbs can also modify adjectives (Tara is really beautiful),
or even other adverbs (It works very well). For examples:

Modify a verb:
- John speaks loudly. (How does John speak?)
- Mary lives locally. (Where does Mary live?)
- She never smokes. (When does she smoke?)
Modify an adjective:
- He is really handsome.
Modify another adverb:
- She drives incredibly slowly.

Adverbs have other functions, too. They can:

Modify a whole sentence:

- Obviously, I can't know everything.
Modify a prepositional phrase:
- It's immediately inside the door.

3. Prepositions: A preposition is a word governing, and usually coming in front of, a noun or
pronoun and expressing a relation to another word or element, as in:

She left before breakfast.

What did you come for?

(For what did you come?)

Prepositions of Place: at the bus stop, in the box, on the wall

Prepositions of Time: at Christmas, in May, on Friday

4. Conjunctions: A conjunction is a word that "joins". A conjunction joins two parts of a

sentence.

Here are some example conjunctions:

Coordinating Conjunctions Subordinating Conjunctions

and, but, or, nor, for, yet, so although, because, since, unless

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 Coordinating conjunctions are used to join two parts of a sentence that are grammatically
equal. The two parts may be single words or clauses, for example:
- Jack and Jill went up the hill.
- The water was warm, but I didn't go swimming.

Subordinating conjunctions are used to join a subordinate dependent clause to a main

clause, for example:
- I went swimming although it was cold.

Parts of Speech Examples

Here are some sentences made with different English parts of speech:

verb noun verb noun verb Verb

Stop! John works. John is working.

Pronoun verb noun noun Verb adjective noun

She loves animals. Animals like kind people.

noun verb noun adverb noun verb adjective noun

Tara speaks English well. Tara speaks good English.

pronoun verb preposition adjective noun adverb

She ran to the station quickly.

pron. verb adj. noun conjunction pron. verb pron.

She likes big snakes but I hate them.

Here is a sentence that contains every part of speech:

interjection pron. conj. adj. noun verb prep. noun adverb

Well, she and young John walk to school slowly.

Identify the parts of speech of the highlighted word in each of the following sentences.
1. The clown chased a dog around the ring and then fell flat on her face.
2. The geese indolently waddled across the intersection.
3. Bruno's shabby thesaurus tumbled out of the book bag when the bus suddenly pulled out
into traffic.

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 4. Mr. Frederick angrily stamped out the fire that the local hooligans had started on his
verandah.
5. She thought that the twenty zucchini plants would not be enough so she planted another
ten.
6. Although she gave hundreds of zucchini away, the enormous mound left over frightened her.
7. Everywhere she went, she talked about the prolific veggies.
8. The manager confidently made his presentation to the board of directors.
9. Frankenstein is the name of the scientist, not the monster.
10. Her greatest fear is that the world will end before she finds a comfortable pair of panty-hose.
11. Small children often insist that they can do it by themselves.
12. Dust covered every surface in the locked bedroom.
13. The census taker knocked loudly on all the doors but nobody was home.
14. They wondered if there truly was honor among thieves.
15. Exciting new products and effective marketing strategies will guarantee the company's
success.

Writing Practice

Write a summary of the following passage. You can refer to unit 1 for the steps to write a
summary. Your summary should not exceed 50 words.

Language
Language is a marvelous thing. Every language consists of a limited number of sounds, a
limited number of ways in which these sounds can be combined to form words, and a limited
number of rules for combining words into sentences. For example, English has about 45 sound
patterns and about 30 patterns for combining these sounds into sentences. Yet from these
limited quantities of sounds and limited number of rules and patterns for combining the
sounds, a speaker of English can produce an unlimited number of sentences that will be
understood by other speakers of English.
The above is true of all languages. All languages are systematic. That is, all languages
have an internally consistent system of rules for combining sounds into speech that is
comprehensible to all those who speak the same language. There is no such thing as a
"primitive" language, meaning an incomplete or rule-deficient language. A highly
technological culture and a primitive culture each have a systematic, internally consistent
language. Both cultures can discuss concrete things and abstract ideas. Both cultures can use
their languages to gossip, to lie, to tell jokes, to tell stories, and to discuss life.
And all human beings of normal hearing and adequate intelligence learn at least one
language. Babies who are born deaf and cannot hear language have trouble learning to speak.
(They can, nevertheless, learn another systematic form of language called sign language.) Also
some severely retarded children can fail to learn a complete language system. The rest of us,
however, learn the basics of our first languages by the time we are five years old, a remarkable
achievement.

From Reading for a Reason, 1989 p. 3

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Summary
1. Skimming is a fast-reading skill to find out the main idea of a paragraph, text, or a book.
2. Scanning is a high-speed reading skill to find out certain information. For examples, to answer
Who-question, focus to names while you are reading fast.
3. An adjective is a word or phrase that is used to modify a noun or pronoun; e.g. The snake is long
and green; long and green are adjectives that modify the noun snake.
4. An adverb is a word that tells how, when, where, or how much,.
5. A preposition is a word that shows the relationship between its object and some other word in a
sentence; e.g. The birds flew through the air; through shows how the verb flew is related to
the noun air.
6. A conjunction is a word that joins other words, phrases, clauses, or sentences; e.g.: and, as, but,
because, since.

Reflection
In this unit, you have learned how to skim-read and scan a text, to identify adjectives, adverbs,
prepositions and conjunctions, and to summarize a long passage. Put a check on the column based
on your own self-assessment.

Objectives Achieved More practice

needed

To skim and scan the text

To summarize long passages

To identify adjectives

To identify adverbs

To identify prepositions

To identify conjunctions

Sources for parts of speech are taken from www.uottawa.ca.com,

www.englishforeveryone.org.com, www.enchantedlearning.com. You can use those links to have
more practices on parts of speech.

Use this link to obtain more practices on skimming and scanning exercises: http://english-
zone.com/reading/map01.html