Professional Documents
Culture Documents
(120 minutes)
Resource: LN and PPT Week 6, 7 Session 10, 11
John Muir
(1) John Muir (1838-1914), a Scottish immigrant to the United States, is today recognized
for his vital contributions in the area of environmental protection and conservation of the
wilderness. As such, he is often referred to as the unofficial “Father of National Parks.”
(2) Muir came to his role as environmentalist in a rather circuitous way. Born in Dunbar,
Scotland, Muir came to the United States with his family at the age of eleven. The family settled
on a Wisconsin farm, where Muir was educated at home rather than in public school because his
father felt that participation in an education in a public school would violate his strict religious
code. Young Muir did read considerably at home and also developed some interesting
mechanical devices by whittling them from wood; when some of his inventions were put on
display at a state fair, they were noted by officials from the University of Wisconsin, and Muir
was invited to attend the university in spite of his lack of formal education. He left the university
after two and a half years; later, while working in a carriage factory, he suffered an injury to his
eye. His vision did recover, but following the accident he decided that he wanted spend his life
studying the beauty of the natural world rather than endangering his health working in a factory.
He set out on a 1,000-mile walk south to the Gulf of Mexico, and from there he made his way to
Yosemite, California, lured by a travel brochure highlighting the natural beauty of Yosemite.
(3) He arrived in California in 1868, at the age of thirty, and once there, he took a number of
odd jobs to support himself, working as a laborer, a sheepherder, and—after he had become
familiar with the wilderness area—a guide. He also began a writing campaign to encourage
public support for the preservation of the wilderness, particularly the area around Yosemite. He
married in 1880, and for the years that followed he was more involved in family life and in
running the ranch given to him and his wife by her parents than in preservation of the
environment.
(4) He had been away from the environmentalist movement for some time when, in 1889, he
was asked by an editor of the magazine The Century to write some articles in support of the
preservation of Yosemite. The editor, well aware of Muir’s talent as a writer and his efforts in
the 1870s to support the conservation of Yosemite, took Muir camping to areas of Yosemite that
Muir had not seen for years, areas that had been spoiled through uncontrolled development.
Questions
1. According to paragraph 1, Muir was born
A. In the first half of the eighteenth century
B. In the second half ot the eighteenth century
C. In the first half of the nineteenth century
D. In the second half of the nineteenth century
5. According to paragraph 2, after Muir left the university, it is NOT true that he
A. Took a job in a factory
B. Suffered an unhealable injury
C. Made a decision to quit his job
D. Embarked on a long walking tour
6. All of the following are mentioned in paragraph 3 as jobs that Muir held EXCEPT
A. A laborer
B. An animal tender
C. A wilderness guide
D. A travel writer
11. According to paragraph 5, it is NOT true that the Sierra Club was founded
A. After the passage of the Enabling Act
B. By John Muir
C. Before the turn of the century
D. To move Yosemite to the Sierra Nevada
Study the passage and choose the best answers to the questions that follow.
Ella Deloria
(1) It was not until her posthumous novel Waterlily was published in 1988 that Ella C.
Deloria became known for her literary ability in addition to her already-established reputation in
the academic arena of linguistics and ethnology. During her lifetime, she was recognized for the
linguistic ability and cultural sensitivity that went into the production of a collection of
traditional short stories entitled Dakota Text (1932). After her death, her versions of a number of
longer traditional stories and the novel Waterlily were published; with the publication of
Waterlily came the recognition of her true literary ability and the awareness that it was the
strength of her literary ability, in addition to her linguistic expertise and her deep cultural
understanding, that had made her versions of traditional stories so compelling.
(2) Ella Cara Deloria was born into a Nakota-speaking family in 1889; however, she grew up
among the Lakota people in North Dakota, where her father was a leader in the Episcopal
Church. Her father, the son of a traditional Nakota medicine man, valued both the cultural
traditions of his family and those of the country of this citizenship. As a result, Deloria primarily
spoke Nakota at home and Lakota when she was out in the community, and she was well versed
there in the cultural traditions of her Sioux ancestors with a complex kinship, structure in which
all of a child’s father’s brothers, and all of the children of all these mothers and fathers are
considered siblings. Her education, however, was in English, at the Episcopalian Saint Elizabeth
Mission School and the All Saints School. After high school, she attended Oberlin College in
Ohio for one year, and then she transferred to Columbia University to study linguistics under
Franz Boas, the founder of American Indian linguistics.
(3) After graduating from Columbia, she was encouraged by Boas to collect and record
traditional Lakota stories. She was in a unique position to take on this task because of her fluency
in the Lakota language as well as in English, her understanding from childhood of the
complexities and subtleties of Lakota culture, and her linguistic training from Columbia. The
result of her research was the Dakota Texts, a bilingual collection of 64 short stories. To create
Questions
1. It can be inferred from paragraph 1 that, while she was alive, Ella Deloria
A. Did little to make use of her education in linguistics
B. Achieved acclaim more for her transcriptions than for her novel
C. Was the published author of a number of types of fiction and nonfiction
D. Was recognized for the literary maturity of her novel
4. What does the author begin paragraph 3 with After graduating from Columbia?
A. To indicate that paragraph 3 follows paragraph 2 in chronological order
B. To clarify that paragraph 3 describes Deloria’s education at Columbia
C. To recognize the importance of education throughout Deloria’s life
D. To demonstrate that paragraph 3 provides examples of a concept presented in paragraph 2
7. It can be inferred from paragraph 4 that “Iron Hawk: Oglala Culture Hero” was published
A. In the same year that it was written
B. Just prior to Deloria’s death
C. Long after it was transcribed
D. Long before Waterlily was published
10. Why does the author mention the untimely death of her husband in a smallpox epidemic in
paragraph 5?
A. It provides a harsh example of Waterlily’s difficult life.
B. It provides evidence of the historical existence of Waterlily.
C. It demonstrates how unusual Waterlily’s life in a nineteenth-century Sioux community
was.
D. It reinforces the overal message of hopelessness of Waterlily.
In recruiting employees, some people think that companies should recruit those innovative and
able to work independently persons, while others think they should recruit those who are able to
work in a team and follow instructions. Discuss both views and support it with some ideas.
Notes:
Basically, people work for money. However, some people prefer to be self-employed and
others prefer to work for an employer. Each of the choices has its own positive and negative
things, but in my personal opinion, I prefer to be an self-employed or you can call it work for
myself, since it has the biggest risk I guest and even I never done yet but I have a dreams that I
can run my own business.
Some people have decided to be self-employed. They prefer to do that because they do
not like to be regulated by any procedures, or being governed by under companies' regulation.
Examples of the self-employed jobs are professional actors, athletes, freelancers, or other kinds
of art performers. Be self-employed have many benefits. First of all, one knows the more he
works the more he gets. Another important reason of being self-employed is independence. One
does not have to report to anyone except one's self. However, in addition to these practical
On the other hand, Working as an employee brings many benefits too. He just does his
job and does not care about the market, competitors and expected profit. One taking a vacation
can forget about all troubles, relax and not worry about who does his job during his absence.
Finally, an employee can always find a more interesting job with a higher salary. But, some
people dislike being a professional worker. They feel that they have limited time, and sometimes
the workload is also unreasonable. However, many people do not realise that becoming an
employee has the lowest risk ever. They will have steady income through their monthly salaries,
despite that their companies might be performing poorly. And then they would have additional
benefits from the company such as medical allowance, annual leaves and company cars as well.
Lastly, companies are also paying the retirement fund for their employees as well. Therefore, the
advantages of being an employee outweighed the disadvantages.
This is a fact that people have different options about work. Some people choose to open
their own business, while others prefer to be self-employed. I personally prefer to be a self-
employed, however it takes all my time to maintance my own business but I think about flexible
working hours and unplanned leaves are all privileges availed only by a self-employed
individual. Also creative liberty which results in better productivity. I will ejoy it because I have
a free soul.
Thank you
Good Luck