WEEKEND HOMEWORK 2 FOR 11GRADE

July 29, 2011


Read these three texts and learn the unknown vocabulary.

TEXT 1:


When Europeans first went to North America they found a lot of new animals. One of these animals was the American bison, or buffalo, as it is sometimes called. The Indians hunted buffaloes for food and clothes, but they only killed a few thousand animals each year. We do not exactly know how many buffaloes there were, because people could not count them. But we believe that in 1800 there were sixty million buffaloes in North America. Then men started hunting the buffaloes for profit.

Between 1800 and 1890 the number of animals fell to only five hundred. The buffalo was almost extinct. But the buffalo was lucky. At the beginning of the twentieth century buffalo hunting stopped. Since that time the number of buffaloes has risen to twenty-five thousand.
Will other animals, like the whale, be as lucky as the buffalo?



TEXT 2:

My name’s Hannah and I’m twenty years old. I’ve got a daughter called Nicole. She is nearly three now. I live in a small flat in the city centre. It isn’t a nice place to live. It’s very noisy and dirty and there is nowhere for Nicole to play.

I want to move out of the city and live in the countryside. But it’s very expensive to live there. I will need to earn enough money to buy a house. There aren’t many flats for sale in the small villages near here. I will need to buy a car too.

That’s why I study at college. I’m studying Business. While I am at college, my mum looks after Nicole. My mum really likes spending time with her. In the evening, I work as a cleaner. I clean people’s houses. Nicole comes with me. She plays quietly with her toys while I work.




TEXT 3:

Ainsley Harriott

I’ve always been a bit of entertainer and played the funny man. I was a part-time comedian for years, so I learned how to stand in front of audiences. It made me sure of myself. I like being liked and I love making everyone smile.

I’ve lived in London all my life and have just moved to a larger house with my wife Clare and our two children, Jimmy and Madeleine. We spend a lot of time just singing and dancing around the house. I grew up with music because my dad is the pianist, Chester Harriott – who’s still playing, by the way. My working day is divided between television and writing cook books, though TV takes most of my time. I spend about five days a fortnight working on the cooking programmes I appear in. I eat all sorts of things at home but I only buy quality food. When I’m cooking, I experiment with whatever is in the fridge – it’s good practice for my TV series.

I’m a football fan and enjoy going to matches, but I’m a home-loving person really. I don’t like going to the pub but we do go out to eat about twice a month. There’s nothing better than a night at home playing with the children. I rarely go to bed before midnight. Late evening is when fresh thoughts on cooking usually come to me, so I often write or plan my programmes then. When I eventually get to bed, I have no trouble sleeping!