Name: MID -TERM TEST

Class: C1.1 Reading –Time: 50 mins

Mark Invigilator 1 Invigilator 2 Examiner 1 Examiner 2

THE EFFECTS OF TOBACCO ON CHILDREN

1 Tobacco’s effects on children – beginning with exposure before they are born –
deserve special attention. Passive smoking places unborn children at serious risk.
Nicotine, numerous toxic chemicals, and radioactive polonium may all interfere with
foetal development, and the foetus can receive the substances through the mother’s
blood whether she smokes or chews tobacco. Furthermore, studies in both industrial
and developing countries show that smoking by pregnant women reduces infant’s
weight at birth by roughly one tenth.
2. In one US survey, smokers gave birth to underweight babies twice as often as
other women did. Research has found a strong, inverse relationship between birth
weight and the levels of cigarette residue (thiocyanate) in infant’s umbilical cords
(Thirty nine percent of women in India chew tobacco). Because birth weight is a key
factor in infant’s mortality, tobacco use seriously endangers infant’s lives.
3. Nicotine also may be the culprit in spontaneous abortions among women who
smoke. Epidemiologist R.T. Ravenhoit estimates that smoking causes 50, 000
miscarriages in the United States each year. This connection has been observed in Italy
as well, where women who smoke miscarry in the first month of pregnancy at a rate of
2.4 percent, compared with 0.9 percent for non-smokers. Ninety-percent of the first
born infants of Italian women who smoke were premature, twice the rate for non-
smokers. Ninety-percent of the first born infants of Italian women who smoke were
premature, twice the rate for non-smokers. The rate of premature delivery in the Italian
study declined by almost 25 percent for the second born children of non-smokers, but it
increased slightly for non-smokers.
4. Unfortunately, women in many countries are smoking in record numbers, even
while pregnant. Surveys in the United Kingdom suggest that about 40 percent of
pregnant women smoke. A complication by Ravenholt of surveys showed that in
nations as disparate as Sweden and Chile over a quarter of pregnant women smoke.
Each year, at least 3 million newborn - the estimated number of live births to women
who smoke – are thus potentially handicapped by their mothers.
5. Children with parents who smoke experience much higher rates of respiratory
illness, including colds, influenza, bronchitis, asthma, and pneumonia. One British
study published about 10 ago showed that children under age one whose mothers smoke
more than one pack a day are as twice as likely to get bronchitis and pneumonia. This
finding has since been repeatedly corroborated.
6. In addition, the evidence indicates that parental smoking retards child
development. One study found that lung capacity was reduced by 7 percent by their
mother’s smoking. If the teenage boys also smoke, their lung capacity was reduced by
25 percent. The effects\ of passive smoking in children can last a lifetime because it
delays physical and intellectual development, and because the longer people are
exposed to carcinogens, the more likely they are to develop lung cancer..
7. Parents who smoke may also reduce the intellectual development of their
children. One study in Italy found that children whose mothers smoked learned to read
more slowly than those of non-smokers.

I. Match these topics to the sections in the passage.

a. Educational difficulties resulted from parents’ smoking. Section _____
b. The effect of mothers’ smoking on the children’s health. Section _____
c. The popularity of smoking among women Section _____
d. Pregnant smokers and the risk of miscarriages. Section _____
e. Parent’s smoking as a cause of illnesses associated Section _____
with the lungs and breathing.
f. Weight problem of smoking mothers’ babies. Section _____
g. Slow development of children whose parents smoke. Section _____

II. Decided whether the following statements are true (T), false (F) or not given
(NG) and give evidence to support your answers.
1. _______ The rate of births of underweight babies whose mothers smoke is higher
in developing countries than in developed countries.
______________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
2. _______ Nicotine in tobacco mothers smoke or chew is one of the major causes of
miscarriages.
______________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
3. _______ The rate of miscarriages by smoking mothers in Italy is much higher than
that by non-smokers.
______________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
4. _______ All effects of passive smoking on babies disappear as they grow.
______________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________

III. Find words or phrases in the passage that mean

1. breathing the fumes from tobacco not being smoked by oneself. ______________
2. process of giving birth happening before the proper time. ______________
3. associated with the lung and the breathing. ______________
4. suffering from serious physical or mental disabilities. ______________

IV. Complete this summary with words from the passage. You may use one or
two words in each blank.
Tobacco women smoke or chew seriously damages their children’s lives. Before
they are born, children are exposed to the risk of (1)___________________ and (2)
___________________. Research has also showed that smoking mothers often give
birth to (3) ___________________ and (4) ___________________ babies. When they
grow up, children whose parents smoke are more likely to suffer from (5)
___________________, the most common ones being influenza, colds, bronchitis and
pneumonia. In addition, (6) ___________________ may considerably slow down the
children’s (7) ___________________ and (8) ___________________ development.