Unit

10

Chunking Exercise &

Reading: Developing
a new industry

Task 1: Identification of Phrases and Clauses (If any)

Review the phrases in the extract below, and identify the phrases
and clauses (if any) in the second extract as the given examples.

one eye span

The Sicilian port city of Catania, / dominated by Mount Etna, Europe’s

NP

the point of eye fixation

biggest active volcano, / is being transformed / into a Mediterranean Silicon

VP PP

99
Valley. / And the `Etna Valley’, / as it is already being called, / is rapidly
NP Adv P
changing / the old stereotype image of the island at the tip of Italy./
VP NP

‘Catania has become the most competitive place in Europe for

high-tech investments,’ argues Pasquale Pistorio, the Sicilian chairman
of ST Microelectronics. This Franco-Italian group has rapidly grown to
become Europe’s largest and the world’s number six, after the likes of
Intel, Toshiba and Motorola, under Mr Pistorio’s leadership.

Task 2: Reading in Chunks and Comprehension Questions

Read the article below in chunks as you have already practiced.
Then answer the comprehension questions that follow.

Success in the shadow of Etna

By Paul Betts
The Sicilian port city of Catania, dominated by Mount Etna,
Europe’s biggest active volcano, is being transformed into a Mediterranean
Silicon Valley. And the `Etna Valley’, as it is already being called, is rapidly
changing the old stereotype image of the island at the tip of Italy.
‘Catania has become the most competitive place in Europe for
high-tech investments,’ argues Pasquale Pistorio, the Sicilian chairman
of ST Microelectronics. This Franco-Italian group has rapidly grown to
become Europe’s largest and the world’s number six, after the likes of
Intel, Toshiba and Motorola, under Mr Pistorio’s leadership.
A former Motorola senior executive, he invested in Catania because
he felt from the start that the Sicilian city had all the ingredients to develop
into a competitive high-tech centre. Like California’s Silicon Valley, the
city had a good university working closely with a leading enterprise. In
turn, this provided the basis for stimulating new entrepreneurial, research
and academic activities.

100 Building Automatic Identification Skills in Reading for Business

 Although Italy’s deep south is not California, incentives provided
by the European Union, the Italian government and local organisations,
as well as Mr Pistorio’s personal commitment, helped Catania grow into
a high-technology centre.
Mr Pistorio remembers when he first joined the company 20 years
ago. The Catania plant was losing a lot of money. But the island also had
a well-educated population and offered high-tech companies what Mr
Pistorio calls ‘ample brain power resources’.
When there are few jobs, young people tend to study more.
Thanks partly to its high unemployment rate, the island had a large sup-
ply of intellectual labour. And Mr Pistorio encouraged studying with ST
Microelectronics working with Catania University, running advanced
courses in its facilities and employing many of the graduates.
Thanks to the high rate of unemployment and government and EU
incentives, Mr Pistorio quickly found that brain-power cost significantly
less in Sicily than elsewhere in Europe. The results have exceeded all
expectations.

From the Financial Times

FINANCIAL TIMES
World business newspaper.

Text Source:
Cotton, D., Falvey, D. & Kent, S. (2000). Market Leader, Pre-Intermediate.
Harlow: Longman.

Comprehension Questions
1. Which industry is the article about?
2. Who is Pasquale Pistorio?
3. How big is his company?
4. Which other high-tech centre is compared to Etna Valley? How
are the two places similar?
5. Who provided incentives to invest in Catania?
6. Why are high-tech companies keen to set up businesses in
Catania?

Building Automatic Identification Skills in Reading for Business 101

Task 3
Find words in the article with the meanings below.
1 changed completely (paragraph 1)
transformed
2 trying hard to be more successful than others (paragraph 2)
3 the things you need to make something (paragraph 3)
4 things which are used to encourage people (paragraph 4)
5 factory (paragraph 5)
6 a company’s equipment, buildings and services (paragraph 6)
7 were better or greater than (paragraph 7)

Task 4
Find sentences in the text with verb phrases written in simple
present tense, simple past tense, and present perfect tense. Provide two
examples each and explain the corresponding time signal in each tense.

Task 5
Choose an area in your country. Explain why it would be a good location for:
a) a high-tech start-up company.
b) a start-up company of your choice.

102 Building Automatic Identification Skills in Reading for Business