RSA English Homework

Transcription

1 RSA English Homework Name If everything s under control, you re going too slow. Mario Andretti Stuck for something amazing to read? What about: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak Narrated by Death, this is the story of Liesel Meminger, a young foster girl living outside of Munich in Nazi Germany. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can t resist books. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library, wherever they are to be found. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, Liesel learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbours during bombing raids, as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement. The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness Prentisstown isn't like other towns. Everyone can hear everyone else's thoughts in an overwhelming, never-ending stream of Noise. Just a month away from the birthday that will make him a man, Todd and his dog, Manchee whose thoughts Todd can hear too, whether he wants to or not stumble upon an area of complete silence. They find that in a town where privacy is impossible, something terrible has been hidden a secret so awful that Todd and Manchee must run for their lives. But how do you escape when your pursuers can hear your every thought? The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins Could you survive on your own, in the wild, with everyone out to make sure you don't live to see the morning? In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister s place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. Autumn Term 2012 : Three

2 1 writing Due week beginning Synonyms: there s always an alternative Your vocabulary choices will be important for those parts of the course assessing your writing skills. Aim for adventurous vocabulary, even if you re not one hundred percent sure of the spelling. Think of as many different words as possible to the ones below. thought angry happy helpful 2 spelling surrender excitement occasion unfamiliar impatience likelihood imaginary miraculous intensity recite

3 3 reading North Sea cod: Is it true there are only 100 left? By Hannah Barnes & Richard Knight More or Less: Behind the stats, BBC News website If recent reports are to be believed, the North Sea cod's days are numbered. But should we believe these reports? What do the experts say about the numbers of fish that are left? The Daily Telegraph recently ran the headline: "Just 100 cod left in the North Sea". It sounded fishy. Trawlermen were furious. "It just makes my blood boil cod in the North Sea?" fumes Brian Buchan, who's been fishing in the North Sea for more than 30 years. "More like 100 million cod in the North Sea." It's not a trivial issue. Over-exploitation and conflicts over fisheries cause major problems worldwide. The story was picked up by other media, including the Atlantic Wire and Canada's Globe and Mail, but it started in the The Sunday Times which reported there were "100 adult cod in North Sea". A different claim - but still wildly wrong. The newspaper got the figure by looking at data from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES). It then asked researchers from the British government's Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) for help with the numbers. According to Cefas, however, the journalists "misunderstood the data". The Sunday Times chose to class an adult cod as aged over 13. But that's not merely an adult cod. It's an ancient cod. "Cod start to mature at ages one and two and they're fully mature by six," says Dr Carl O'Brien, the UK's chief fisheries science adviser. So we shouldn't be surprised that there are very few cod aged over 13 (in fact fewer than 60 have been recorded in the North Sea in past 30 years) just as we shouldn't be surprised there aren't very many humans over 100. So where did the newspaper get the idea that cod reach adulthood at 13? Well in the same article, the Sunday Times stated that cod could live to 25, which implies a 13- year-old cod is merely middle-aged. Dr Tom Webb, a marine ecologist, says this age comes from the website fishbase.org. He says that although it is a reliable source of fishrelated data, the idea that cod in the North Sea live to 25 is wrong. The only estimate for a North Sea cod of maximum age is 11, he said. All this raises a question. Given what we know about when cod mature, just how many "adult" cod are there in the North Sea? Remember, the Sunday Times said there were just 100. The right answer? Well, using the same dataset, the right answer appears to be rather more than million, in fact.

4 1 writing Due week beginning Self review A review will usually tell you something about the content of what is being reviewed. So if it s a book or play, you would find out a little about what happens. A review will also pick out things that are good. Bad things will also be mentioned. A summary sentence can give a quick idea of what the overall opinion is. Write a review of how you got on in recent lesson. Use the bullet points above to structure your response. 2 council counsel personal personnel thought attack usual mocking memory companion spelling

5 3 reading Britishisms and the Britishisation of American English Cordelia Hebblethwaite There is little that troubles British defenders of the English language more than Americanisms, which they see creeping into newspaper columns and everyday conversation. But bit by bit British English is invading America too. "Spot on - it's just ludicrous!" snaps Geoffrey Nunberg, a linguist at the University of California at Berkeley. "You are just impersonating an Englishman when you say spot on. Will do - I hear that from Americans. That should be put into quarantine," he adds. But not everyone shares his revulsion at the drip, drip, drip of Britishisms - to use an American term - crossing the Atlantic. "I enjoy seeing them," says Ben Yagoda, professor of English at the University of Delaware, and author of the forthcoming book, How to Not Write Bad. "It's like a birdwatcher. If I find an American saying one, it makes my day." Last year Yagoda set up a blog dedicated to spotting the use of British terms in American English. So far he has found more than from cheeky to chat-up via sellby date and the long game - an expression which appears to date back to 1856, and comes not from golf or chess, but the card game whist. President Barack Obama has used it in at least one speech. Yagoda notices changes in pronunciation too - for example his students sometimes use "that sort of London glottal stop", dropping the T in words like "important" or "Manhattan". The Britishisms are coming Ginger (red hair) The use of ginger in the US to describe red hair took off with publication of the first Harry Potter book in 1998, says Kory Stamper of Merriam- Webster. Unlike in the UK, there is no anti-ginger prejudice in the US, she says - Americans think of warm, comforting things like gingerbread. Sell-by date (expiration) Americans use "expiration date" for the British sell-by date - the date by which supermarket food must be sold. But sell-by date is increasingly used in the US in a figurative sense. Eg "That idea is well past its sell-by date." Go missing (disappear) This came to the fore in the US when intern Chandra Levy "disappeared", says Ben Yagoda. Go missing was widely used, he says, because it felt more nuanced. In his view, British terms can "really serve a purpose" when there is no exact equivalent in American English. Chat up (hit on) The use of chat up to refer to flirtatious conversation really began to take off in the 1990s, says Kory Stamper. Often you can't pinpoint why a word or phrase gets picked up, she says. Chat up is a good example of a Britishism that has "snuck in on cat's feet".

6 1 writing Due week beginning Dear Me, What if you could change the past? Now s your chance to try. Adults love to give advice to young people about how to lead a better life. Imagine you are 40 and you have the ability to write to your younger self. What advice would you give? Imagine you have had life experiences that you can use to give advice. Use the ideas above to help you structure your answer. Think about the sort of person you hope to be in the future. What would that person say to you? When giving advice be clear about what you think should be done. 2 spelling deliberate spectacle triumph pursuit honesty exciting unconscious doubt quiet delete

7 3 reading 'Trillions of carats' of diamonds found under Russian asteroid crater Ian Steadman The Russian government has revealed that a vast quantity of high-quality diamonds rests beneath a Siberian impact crater, numbering in the "trillions of carats". The Popigai crater, 100km-wide and located in the isolated north of the country, was formed roughly 35.7 million years ago by the impact of an asteroid estimated to be between five and eight kilometres wide. Its collision created a wealth of impact diamonds -- which form when an existing diamond seam is hit by a large falling body -- in such quantities that could, it is claimed, supply the world diamond market for the next 3,000 years. According to the Christian Science Monitor, Nikolai Pokhilenko, the director of the Novosibirsk Institute of Geology and Mineralogy, has said that these diamonds are "twice as hard" as normal diamonds, making them ideal for industrial and scientific use. He also claimed that the supply under Popigai is ten times the size of the rest of the world's reserves, potentially holding trillions of carats. A carat -- defined as 200mg -- is the standard measurement of weight for precious gems and minerals. The Popigai crater is the world's fourth-largest asteroid impact crater known so far, after the Chicxulub, Sudbury and Vredefort craters. The Soviet government reportedly discovered the deposits in the 1970s on a scientific expedition, but decided to keep the information secret so as not to disturb world markets and lower the value of their already-profitable Mirny mine further east, which at its height was producing ten million carats of diamonds per year. The mine, now closed due to falling yields, is currently the second-largest excavated hole in the world, and helicopters are forbidden from flying over it in case downward air flow sucks them in. The Soviet Union had also invested large sums in manufacturing highquality diamonds, and wanted to see a return on their research. If the Russian source under Popigai is as big as reported, then the world diamond industry will be in for further changes -- especially if their quality is as high as is claimed.

8 Robert Smyth Academy Literacy Protocol How to present your work Use blue or black pens for writing. Write the date and title in full. Underline the date and title with a ruler. Cross out mistakes using one neat line - not correcting fluid. Draw diagrams and illustrations in pencil. Use a ruler for drawing any straight lines in your work. Avoid scribbling on the covers of or in exercise books. We always expect you to punctuate your writing accurately. How your written work will be marked Sp Check spelling. // New paragraph needed. P C T Please use punctuation here (mostly a comma or a full stop). You need a capital letter here. Please check the tense of your verb. FS Please answer in a full sentence.? The meaning of this sentence is not clear. V ^ EG Think of a better word (vocabulary) here. There is a word missing in this sentence. Needs an example or quotation.