Mark Twain (Reading)

-
Read the following text about the writer Max Twain paying attention to the information:
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American humorist, satirist, novelist, writer, and lecturer. Although Twain was confounded by financial and business affairs, his humor and wit were keen, and he enjoyed immense public popularity. At his peak, he was probably the most popular American celebrity of his time. In 1907, crowds at the Jamestown Exposition thronged just to get a glimpse of him. He had dozens of famous friends, including William Dean Howells, Booker T. Washington, Nikola Tesla, Helen Keller, and Henry Huttleston Rogers. Fellow American author William Faulkner is credited with writing that Twain was "the first truly American writer, and all of us since are his heirs." Twain died in 1910 and is buried in Elmira, New York.
Clemens was born in Florida, Missouri, on November 30, 1835. When he was four, his family moved to Hannibal, a port town on the Mississippi River, which later served as the inspiration for the fictional town of St. Petersburg in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Missouri had been admitted as a slave state in 1821 as part of the Missouri Compromise, and from an early age Twain was exposed to the institution of slavery, a theme which Twain was to later explore in his work. Ironically enough, Twain was in fact colorblind, which fueled his witty banter in the social circles of the day. In 1847, when Twain was eleven, his father fell ill with pneumonia and died that March. As a teenager Twain worked as an apprentice printer; when he was sixteen, he began writing humorous articles and newspaper sketches. When he was eighteen, he left Hannibal, working as a printer in New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Cincinnati. At the age of 22, Twain returned to Missouri and worked as a riverboat pilot and earned $250 which was a "pricely amount" back then, until trade was interrupted by the American Civil War in 1861.
Missouri, although a slave state and considered by many to be part of the South, declined to join the Confederacy and remained loyal to the Union. When the war began, Clemens and his friends formed a Confederate militia (an experience he depicted in his 1885 short story, "The Private History of a Campaign That Failed"), but he saw no military action and the militia disbanded after two weeks. His friends joined the Confederate Army; Clemens joined his brother, Orion, who had been appointed secretary to the territorial governor of Nevada, and headedwest. They traveled for more than two weeks on a stagecoach across the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains to the silver-mining town of Virginia City, Nevada. On the way, they visited the Mormon community in Salt Lake City. Clemens' experiences in the West contributed significantly to his formation as a writer, and became the basis of his second book, Roughing It.
Once in Nevada, Clemens became a miner, hoping to strike it rich discovering silver in the Comstock Lode. He stayed for long periods in camp with his fellow prospectors—another life experience that he later put to literary use. After failing as a miner, Clemens obtained work at a newspaper called the Daily Territorial Enterprise in Virginia City. It was there he first adopted the pen name "Mark Twain".

Now it's time to answer some comprehension questions:
1. According to the text, all the following sentences are true, except one, which?
A. Twain was a successful miner.
B. Twain started writing as a teenager.
C. Twain was a very popular celebrity.
D. Twain's father died when Twain was a child.
2. Which of these assesments is false?
A. Twain grew up around slavery.
B. Travelling west with his brother benefited his writing career.
C. Twain used life experiences in his writing.
D. Twain was a financial success.
3. The word disbanded in the third paragraph is closest in meaning to: 
A. broke up as group.
B. no longer prohibited.
C. stopped performing music.
D. joined with another group.
4. The word banter in the second paragraph is closest in meaning to: 
A. status
B. biography
C. reputation
D. playful, teasing remarks
5. The word headed in the third paragraph is closest in meaning to: 
A. desire to go.
B. went in the direction of
C. hit the ball with his head
D. dreamed about 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Alexander Graham Bell (Use of English)

-
Read the text below and choose word from each space. Alexander Graham Bell Alexander Graham Bell 1.___ born in Scotland in 1847. His father, an expert on speech, 2.____  a way of teaching how words 3.___ be pronounced. He translated the 4.___ of words into straight or curvy lines. Alexander 5.___ to be a teacher and, when his mother went deaf, he started to be 6.___ in how deaf people communicate. In 1870, because his children were in poor health, Alexander and his family moved to the United States. He hoped that a warmer 7.___ would be better for the whole family. It was while he was teaching deaf children there 8.___ he invented a new machine. It was very 9.___ to the human ear itself, and Bell discover it could carry human speech 10.___ a wire from one place to another. It was not long before the telephone was a part of 11.___ our lives! 1. A.was   B.is   C.has   D.had 2. A.grew   B.built   C.developed   D.worked 3. A.ought   B.should   C.might   D.would
Read more

Computers (Past Simple vs. Present Perfect Simple)

-
Computers Since computers were first introduced to the public in the early 1980's, technology  has changed  a great deal. The first computers were  simple machines designed for basic tasks. They  did not have  much memory and they  weren't  very powerful. Early computers were often quite expensive and customers often  paid  thousands of dollars for machines which actually  did  very little. Most computers  were  separate, individual machines used mostly as expensive typewriters or for playing games.  Times  have changed . Computers have become  powerful machines with very practical applications. Programmers have created  a large selection of useful programs which do everything from teaching foreign languages to bookkeeping. We are still playing video games, but today's games  have become  faster, more exciting interactive adventures. Many computer users  have also got  on the Internet and have begun  communicating with other computer users around the world. We have start
Read more

How the recycling symbol was created (Reading)

-
Image
Six sentences have been removed from the article. Choose from the sentences A-G the one which fits each gap. How the recycling symbol was created  Gary Anderson designed a symbol which we see everywhere nowadays I studied engineering at the University of Southern California at a time when there was a lot of emphasis in the United States on training young people to be engineers. That said, I eventually switched to architecture. I just couldn't get a grasp on electronics and archircture seemed more concrete to me. It was around that time that I saw a poster advertising a design competition being run by the Container Corporation of America. The idea was to create a symbol to represent recycled paper. One of my college requirements had been a graphic design course so I thhought I'd give it a go. It didn't take me long to come up with my design: only a day or two. 1.___. But I already had arrows and angles in my mind because on my course I'd done a present
Read more