READING COMPREHENSION 1

STRANGE BUT TRUE.

TEXT 1
On December 22, 1980 a Saudi Arabian aircraft market on the island, they saw a stall with hundreds
was flying 29,000 feet above the Persian Gulf when of beautiful hand made dolls. Marianne’s mother
an explosion tore a hole in the side of the plane. said she could have one , and the little girl finally
The sudden decompression sucked out Samina chose a lovely black doll after looking at all of
Khatoon, aged 10, and her twin brother Ahmed. them with great care. Back in New York
The plane immediately made an emergency landing Marianne’s mother was washing the doll’s clothes
but the search for the children was fruitless. The when she discovered a label on the inside of her
children’s parents thought their children were lost dress with the name: Betty Louty.
for ever, but three years later, they were watching
television in Abu Dhabi when they saw their TEXT 5
daughter being interviewed. The girl said she and On New Year’s Day 1984, Fred Simons, aged 79,
her brother had fallen into the sea from a plane and was sitting on his patio in Lakewood, near Los
been found by an Arab fisherman.. “He thought we Angeles when something crashed from the sunny
were a present from Heaven, and raised us as if we sky into his backyard. To his amazement, he
were his own children.” discovered it was a nine-inch twenty-two-pound
shell of the kind used in World War II. It left a
TEXT 2 crater four feet deep in Fred’s backyard.
In 1984 George Veriopoulos, a Greek Orthodox Neighbours said that they heard a whistling sound
priest, was preparing a dish of boiled sheep’s head before the shell plummeted to the ground, but no-
when he noticed something shiny at the bottom of one could see or hear a plane. A bomb squad from
the sheep’s teeth. He scraped away some meat with the sheriff’s department found that the shell
his knife and saw gold all along the sheep’s contained no explosives.
jawbone. It turned out to be 14 carat with an
estimated value of $6000. The eight-month-old TEXT 6
sheep had been given to the priest by his brother, In July 1991 Robert Lindsey was boating on a
who had a farm in Patission, near Athens. The reservoir in Green River, Wyoming with some
Greek ministry of agriculture investigated and friends and their children. A small girl fell into the
confirmed that the story was true and they also water and he dived in to rescue her. While he was
examined the other sheep in the herd. No-one can in the water, the boat ran over him and the outboard
explain how the gold got into the sheep’s mouth. motor cut off three of his fingers, two of which
George split the money he earned from the sale of were found and reattached. Nearly seven months
the jawbone with his brother and donated his half later a fisherman on the lake hooked a trout. When
to various good causes. he gutted it, he found a severed thumb in its
stomach.. A policeman remembered the boating
TEXT 3 incident and contacted Lindsey, who said, “As soon
Yuliya Vorobyeva, aged thirty-seven, was driving a as I saw it, I was pretty sure it was mine.” He
crane in a mine in Donetsk in the Ukraine in 1978 added, “I think I’ll probably just put it on a shelf to
when she received a 398 volt shock. Everybody show people.”
thought she was dead but while a doctor was
carrying out an autopsy two days later, he suffered TEXT 7
a shock of a different kind when the ‘corpse’ Edwin Robinson , from Portland, Maine, suffered a
suddenly regained consciousness. After coming to severe head injury in a road accident in 1971 and
she didn’t sleep at all for six months , and then gradually lost his sight and hearing.
slept for three weeks and woke to find she could On June 4th , 1980, he went out of his house during
see right through people – literally. She was later a thunder storm, and was struck by lightning. He
employed at Donetsk hospital to diagnose rare was knocked out for half an hour, but he survived
illnesses, such as diseases of the pancreas. because he was wearing rubber-soled boots. They
saved his life. While he was being rushed to
TEXT 4 hospital in an ambulance he regained
When she was a child, Marianne Atkins from New consciousness and found to his delight that his
York had an imaginary friend that she used to play central vision was back and he could hear perfectly
with. She told her parents that her little pal’s name again.
was Betty Louty and that she lived far away.
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Several years later, the family went on holiday to
Jamaica, and while they were strolling around a
 READING COMPREHENSION STRANGE BUT TRUE

QUESTION 1
Choose the best title for each text from the list below. (NB: There are 5 extra titles) Write the letter of the title (a, b,
c etc)in the space provided.

a. X-RAY VISION
b. SURPRISE IN FISH
c. SHOCK BRINGS MAN TO HIS SENSES
d. TOO VALUABLE TO EAT
e. A DOLL NAMED MARIANNE.
f. BOMB FROM THE SKY
g. A GIFT FROM GOD
h. THE WEST INDIAN PLAYMATE .
i. KIDS FALL INTO BACKYARD
j. MAN’S THUMB IS REATTACHED
k. SHEEP WITH GOLD TEETH.
l. MINER STRUCK BY LIGHTNING.

Text 1………Text 2………Text 3………Text 4………Text 5………Text 6………Text 7………

QUESTION 2
Below are 7 sentences which have been taken out of the texts. In the space provided, write the number of the
text that the sentence comes from.

1. Five years later he was totally blind and deaf. Text…………

2. When he had recovered from the shock, he went to have a look Text…………
3. She would spend hours talking to her. Text…………
4. He took it to the police Text…………
5. They were all perfectly normal. Text…………
6. He had taken them home. Text…………
7. She impressed the reporter who came to interview her by telling Text…………
him what he had had for breakfast.

QUESTION 3 Are the following sentences true or false? Circle the right answer.
1. Samina and Ahmed were both ten years old when they fell out of the plane. TRUE FALSE
2. The Greek priest sold the gold jawbone and gave all the money to charity. TRUE FALSE
3. Yuliya got a job scanning patients’ insides. TRUE FALSE
4. Both Marianne’s imaginary friend and the black doll had the same name. TRUE FALSE
5. The shell in Fred’s backyard was later detonated by a bomb squad. TRUE FALSE
6. Robert’s fingers were eaten by a fish. TRUE FALSE
7. After he was hit by lightning, Edwin was unconscious for half an hour. TRUE FALSE

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 QUESTION 4
Below are twelve words and expressions from the text. In the text they are underlined. For each one,
choose an expression from the box which has a similar meaning IN THIS CONTEXT. (NB: There are
extra words in the box.)
Write the expression against the word below. The first one has been done as an example .

behind caught attractive plane friend cut unsuccessful waking up jumped quite
restored walking doll fell going to sleep ate unnecessary buying exploded

1. aircraft (Text 1) ……..plane……

2. fruitless (Text 1) ………………..
3. scraped (Text 2) ………………..
4. coming to (Text 3) ………………..
5. pal (Text 4) ………………..
6. strolling (Text 4) ………………..
7. plummeted (Text 5) ………………..
8. dived (Text 6) ………………..
9. hooked (Text 6) ………………..
10. pretty (Text 6) ………………..
11. back (Text 7) ………………..

QUESTION 5 What nouns (words or phrases) do the pronouns and possessive adjectives in bold (
grassetto) substitute in the text? The first two are examples.

1. He thought we were… (Text 1) …..the Arab fisherman

2. ..to the priest by his brother..(Text”) …..the priest’s……….
3. they were watching television(Text 1) ……………………..
4. It turned out to be… (Text 2) ……………………….
5. he suffered a shock.. (Text 3) ……………………….
6. she could have one… (Text 4) ……………………….
7. inside of her dress… (Text 4) ……………………….
8. It left a crater… (Text 5) ……………………….
9. As soon as I saw it… (Text 6) ……………………….
10. They saved his life. (Text 7) ……………………….

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READING COMPREHENSION 4

UNUSUAL MEDICAL CONDITIONS He has been imprisoned repeatedly for stealing.

Each time he is released from prison he goes
TEXT 1 immediately to a restaurant and orders an
Fine art can really make you sick. Or so says Dr. enormous meal, which he never actually eats.
Graziella Magherini, author of The Stendhal Unable to pay the huge bill, he then tells the
Syndrome. She has studied more than a hundred owners to call the police and eats all the cutlery on
tourists in Florence, Italy, who became ill in the the table until they arrive.
presence of great works of art. The typical
sufferer is a single person between the ages of TEXT 5
twenty-six and forty who rarely leaves home. Dr. This bizarre neurological disorder afflicts
Margherini believes the syndrome is a result of jet thousands of people. It is caused by damage to
lag, travel stress and the shock of an certain parts of the brain, and makes one of a
overwhelming sense of the past. The disorder person’s hands act independently of the other and
was named after the nineteenth century French of its owner’s wishes. For example, the
novelist who became overwhelmed by the misbehaving hand may do the opposite of what
frescoes in Florence’s Santa Croce Church. the normal one is doing: if a person is trying to
Particularly upsetting works of art include button a shirt with one hand, the other will follow
Michelangelo’s statue of David, Caravaggio’s along and undo the buttons. If one hand pulls up
painting of Bacchus and the concentric circles of trousers, the other will pull them down.
the Duomo cupola. Sometimes the hand may become aggressive –
pinching, slapping or punching the patient. Says
TEXT 2 neurologist Rachelle Doody, “Often a patient will
On February 26, 1992, Beijing worker Xu sit on the hand, but eventually it gets loose and
Denghai was hospitalised with a twisted intestine starts behaving badly again.”
after playing excessively with a Hula -Hoop.
Apparently, he had been swinging the hoop TEXT 6
around his middle for over three hours a day. His During a sports day at the University of
was the third such case in the several weeks after Washington twenty-four men and women took
a craze for Hula-Hooping had swept China. The part in a mud wrestling competition. Within thirty
Beijing Evening News advised people to warm up six hours, seven wrestlers were covered with big
properly before starting and to avoid Hula - red spots filled with pus and the rest succumbed
Hooping immediately after eating. later. According to the wrestlers, the rash was
very painful and extremely itchy. The spots were
TEXT 3 on the areas not covered by the contestants’
In its August 1992 issue, the highly respected swimsuits – one unlucky victim had wrestled in
British Journal of Addiction described three the nude and was afflicted much more seriously
unusual cases of carrot dependence. One of the than the others. The dermatitis palastrie limosae
patients was a forty-year-old man who had given or ‘muddy wrestling rash’ may have been caused
up smoking and had replaced cigarettes with by the presence of manure in the mud.
carrots. As soon as he felt the need for a cigarette Mud= fango manure=concime
he would munch a carrot instead, but
unfortunately, after a couple of months, he was TEXT 7
eating as many as five bunches a day. According According to British paranormalist Hilary Evans,
to the psychiatrists who were treating them, he some people are ‘human electric pylons, capable
and the other patients showed withdrawal of generating charges strong enough to knock out
symptoms similar to that of nicotine – when streetlights and damage electronic equipment.’
deprived of carrots they became tetchy and were Cases of ‘electric people’ date back to 1786, but
unable to concentrate on the simplest of tasks. in recent times the most famous is that of
fourteen-year-old Angelique Cottin whose
TEXT 4 electrically charged presence caused lights to go
The desire to eat metal objects is comparatively out, electrical equipment to malfunction and the
common. Occasionally there is an extreme case, telephone to ring. According to her parents a
such as that of Englishman Alec Johnson. A thief normal home life was impossible with her around
with a compulsion to eat cutlery, Johnson has had because nothing worked properly. Unable to cope
thirty operations to remove knives and similar with the situation, they had the poor girl put in a
27 clinic, where her case was studied by doctors.
objects from his stomach. In his last operation in
992 eight spoons were extracted.
READING COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS UNUSUAL MEDICAL CONDITIONS

QUESTION 1 Choose the best title for each text from the list below. (NB: There are 5 extra titles)
Write the letter of the title (a, b, c, etc) in the space provided.

a) VEGETABLE ADDICTS
b) BOY CAUSES ELECTRICAL PROBLEMS
c) A CRAVING FOR KNIVES AND FORKS
d) TRAVEL SICKNESS AFFECTS TOURISTS
e) CHINESE DIET PROBLEMS
f) ALLERGIC TO CARROTS
g) ART ATTACK
h) SKIN PROBLEMS
i) ALIEN HAND SYNDROME
j) STOMACH IN A TWIST
k) HIGHLY CHARGED TEENAGER
l) BOTH HANDS MISBEHAVING

Text 1………Text 2………Text 3………Text 4………Text 5………Text 6………Text 7………

QUESTION 2 Are the following sentences true or false? Circle the right answer.

1. Dr. Magherini has written a book about the condition described in Text 1. TRUE FALSE
2. The writer Stendhal suffered from the condition described by Dr. Magherini. TRUE FALSE
3. Xu Denghai was the only person in Peking to be hospitalised due to Hula -Hooping. TRUE FALSE
4. The man in Text 3 was eating 5 carrots a day. TRUE FALSE
5. Alec Johnson likes eating expensive food in restaurants. TRUE FALSE
6. People with the condition in Text 5 often have trouble getting dressed. TRUE FALSE
7. The wrestlers affected by mud were all wearing swimsuits. TRUE FALSE
8. Only 7 of the wrestlers were covered with spots. TRUE FALSE
9. The first known case of an ‘electric person’ was in the eighteenth century. TRUE FALSE
10. Angelique’s parents were obliged to send her to a clinic. TRUE FALSE

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QUESTION 3
There is a sentence missing from each text. The sentences which were taken out of the texts are
below. Which sentence goes with which text? Write the text number in the space provided next to
the sentence.

a) “I spent all my free time doing it,.” he is reported to have said. Text………….
b) In at least one case, it even tried to strangle its owner. Text………….
c) “We could not stop scratching,” they said. Text………….
d) The fridge, the tv and the toaster were always out of order. Text………….
e) Their symptoms include heart palpitations, dizziness and stomach pains. Text………….
f) “The things I eat are expensive,” he says in his defence. Text………….
g) When he began to think obsessively about them, he decided he needed help. Text………….

QUESTION 4

Below are eight words and expressions from the text. In the text they are in bold. For each one, choose
an expression from the box which has a similar meaning IN THIS CONTEXT. (NB: There are some
extra words in the box.)
Write the expression against the word below. The first one has been done as an example.

free extinguish normal smoke medical condition eat very disturbing

irritable enormous happy chaos passion mad break

1. overwhelming (text 1) ..very disturbing………

2. disorder (text 1) ……………………….
3. craze (text 2) ……………………….
4. munch (text 3) ……………………….
5. tetchy (text 3) ……………………….
6. huge (text 4) ……………………….
7. loose (text 5) ……………………….
8. knock out (text 7) ……………………….

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