Basic Book

1 ‫عبداللهي‬ Abdollahi20@gmail.
com
1
A Lazy Student
John is a student who isn’t interested in studying. He prefers to have a good
time. Naturally, when he took his examinations, he didn’t get good marks. Since he was
sure his father would be angry with him, he sent a telegram to his brother’s house. In the
telegram, he asked his brother to prepare his father for the bad news. The next morning,
he received the following answer:
“Father is prepared. You ‘d better prepare yourself”
2.Touchy Topics
2 ‫عبداللهي‬ Abdollahi20@gmail.com
In English speaking societies when people meet each other for the first time,
they talk about things like family, work school, or sports. They ask questions like “Do you
have any brothers or sisters ’’, ‘‘Where do you work’?’’. ‘‘What school do you go to?. and
“[)o you like sports? They also ask questions like “Where do you Come from?’’ and
“Where do you live?’’ These are Polite questions. They are not personal or private.
But some things are personal or private, and questions about them are not
polite. People do not ask questions about a person’s salary. They do not ask how much
someone paid for something. It is OK to ask children how old they are. But it is not polite
to ask older people their age. It is also not polite to ask people questions about politics or
religion unless you know them very well. People do not ask unmarried people ‘‘Why are
you single?’’ and they do not ask a married couple with no children “Why don’t you have
any children?’’
3 Titanic
One or the greatest sea tragedies that has ever occurred was that of the
steamship Titanic. It was the first trip of the giant ship. There were more than two
thousand people aboard on their way to the United States from England
It was on the night of April 14, 1912. The sea was calm, the weather beautiful.
People were dancing in the spacious saloons. Music, laughter and singing could be heard
everywhere. The thought of danger was far away.
Suddenly just before midnight, the sailor on guard cried:”Iceberg!”
Before the ship could change her course, the iceberg had torn a huge hole in the
bottom of the ship. Nothing could be done. The new ship went down into the sea. More
than fifteen hundred people lost their lives on that tragic night.
Martial Arts
The martial arts are types of self-defense. They began in Japan hundreds of years
ago as ways of fighting. martial arts developed because soldiers needed to train for real
wars. After some time people began to think of these training exercises as sports, but
they didn’t become real sports with competitions until about a hundred years ago.
Judo, for example, is a type of wrestling without using weapons. Judo wrestlers
wear special white jackets when they are in competition.
Karate is another way of fighting without weapons. It became a sport in the
1920s. The feet and the hands are very important in this sport. Karate is different from
judo because you do not try to throw the other person to the ground in karate.
Kung fu is the Chinese form of karate.
Kendo is completely different. In kendo you use long sticks made of wood. In
competition you have to try to hjt the other person with your stick. The one who does this
is the winner.
Martial arts like these are very popular now because they are often seen in films.
Because people like to see this type of action, there are now hundreds of clubs where you
can practice martial arts.

Energy and the Sun
All the useful energy at the surface of the earth comes from the activity of the
sun. The sun heats and feeds mankind. Each year it provides men with two hundred
million tons of grain and nearly ten million tons of wood.
Coal, oil, natural gas, and all other fuels are stored-up energy from the sun.
Some was collected by this season’s plants as carbon compounds. Some was stored by
plants and trees ages ago.
Even waterpower derives from the sun. Water turned into vapor by the sun falls
as rain. It courses down the mountains and is converted to electric power.
Light transmits only the energy that comes from the sun’s outer layers, and
much of this energy that is directed toward the earth never arrives. About nine-tenths of
it is absorbed by the atmosphere of the earth. In fact, the earth itself gets only one half-
billionth of the sun’s entire output of radiant energy.

Headaches
All people have headaches at some time during their lives. Some headaches are
very weak and some are very strong. Some people with strong headaches go
immediately to the doctor. In the past, doctors gave these people aspirin and told them
to go home. Now doctors think they made a mistake. A headache is not a disease, but the
result of a disease. Now they want to find the disease that causes headaches.
Toothaches and hunger can cause headaches. A dentist and food can cure these
headaches. A continuous, strong headache, however, might be caused by a bad disease,
such as a brain tumor-an extra growth inside the brain.
Nervous headaches are usual in today’s life. A person who must drive in crowded
streets might get a headache. A doctor has found that hard-working people have the
most headaches. These people work very hard to get what they want. The best cure for a
nervous headache is sleep. Another kind of headache is caused by sadness. The person
gets headaches because he has a problem that he cannot solve. He needs help from a
psychiatrist to stop his headaches.
People have tried many ways to cure headaches. Long ago some people opened
the head to let out devils that they thought made the head hurt. Today, modern medicine
uses drugs to make the blood vessels smaller. Any medicine or drink that makes the
blood vessels larger only makes the headache worse.
They use drugs to make the blood vessels smaller.

Modern Buildings
There are buildings like this all over the world today but a hundred years ago,
there were no buildings more than five or six storeys high. Why is this? What change has
taken place?
A hundred years ago most buildings were built in the same way. The builder used
bricks and cement to make walls. The walls held up the floor above them. On this floor
the builder put up more brick walls which held up next floor. In this way it was not
possible to make buildings more than five or six storeys high. All the weight of the
building was on the brick walls. To make higher buildings, the walls on the lower floors
had to be very thick and strong and there would be no space for rooms.
The modern builder does not use brick walls to carry weight, or ‘load’ as it is
called. He makes a frame of metal, which may be iron or steel, and this is very strong. It
can take the weight of all the building. The walls do not need to take any load.
The builder begins by clearing the land where the building will be. This is called
the ‘site’. Then he makes the ‘foundation’. This is the bottom of the building below the
ground. It must be very strong because it has to carry all the weight of the building. If the
ground is rock, it is easy. Rock is a good foundation. The builder digs holes in rock and
puts the metal pieces into the holes. Then he pours cement or concrete into the holes.
What is cement or concrete? It is all around you. Do you go up or down steps when you
come to college? Steps are usually made of cement or concrete.
If there is not rock and the ground is not very strong, the builder has to dig deep
holes. The long pieces of metal are placed in these holes and concrete is poured in. The
concrete becomes very hard. When the foundation is ready, the iron or steel pieces are
built on top of it. As the pieces are joined together, the frame of the building rises higher
and higher.
The floors and walls are made of concrete and metal. The walls do not have to be
very strong because they have no weight to carry. The inside walls can be very thin. Then
the builder adds doors and windows and all the pipes and wires that a building needs.
When a building is made in this way, it can be very high. There is a building in
America which has 110 storeys and is 412 meters high!
The Old Man and the Sea
On the coast of Cuba lived an old fisherman. He was thin and had many deep
lines in the back of his neck. His skin was very brown, and his hands were marked by
pulling heavy fish at the end of ropes. But all these marks were old. Every part of him
seemed old except his eyes. These were cheerful and the same color as the sea.
For eighty-four days the old man didn’t catch any fish. People said that he was
unlucky. But the old man still loved the sea. He was still strong and a good fisherman. On
the eighty-fifth day the old man sailed farther out to sea than any of the other boats. He
sailed to where the water was very deep. Then he felt his fishing-line being pulled gently
by a big fish which was swimming very deep in the water.
The fish was so powerful that it pulled the boat after it. It took the small boat far
out to sea. The old man could no longer see the land.
‘Fish,’ he said softly, aloud, ‘I’ll stay with you until I am dead.’
The old man pulled the line a little tighter, but he did not dare to pull it suddenly.
The fish might jump and escape. Or it might dive down into the sea and pull the boat
after it. But the fish was strong and brave. It pulled the boat on and on.
When the fish rose at last to the top of the water, the old man saw that it was
two feet longer than his boat. The old man had seen many great fish, but this one was
the greatest fish he had ever seen. It was also the most beautiful.
On the morning of the third day, the end came. Tired and full of pain, the old
man threw his harpoon into the heart of the great fish. The fish rose high out of the
water, showing all its power and beauty. The next moment it was dead.
Slowly and painfully, the old man tied the fish to the side of the boat. Then he
returned back and sailed towards the distant shore. He sailed well and he looked often at
the huge fish.
Then the first shark came. The old man killed it, but he lost his harpoon and all
his rope. Two hours later two more sharks came. The old man fought them with his oar
and his knife. Then he used a stick. Then the tiller. But he knew he was beaten. When he
sailed into the little harbor and pulled his boat on shore, no fish was left. Only the giant
white backbone.
The next morning the fishermen in the village gathered round the small boat.
They measured the big bone of the fish. It was eighteen feet long. ‘What a fish it was,’
someone said. ‘There has never been such a fish.’
The Solar System
The moon and the stars are not the only objects shining in the sky. There are
also planets. The sun has nine planets going around it. We live on one of these, the third
planet from the sun, Earth.
The earth moves around the sun once every year. It’s about 150 million
kilometers away from the sun. The planets that are nearer to the sun take less than a
year to go round the sun once. Mercury is the closest to the sun, just 58 million
kilometers away. Then comes Venus.
Planets that are farther away from the sun take more than a year to orbit the
sun. The most distant planet is Pluto. It takes over 247 years to go round the sun.
Planets do not send their own heat or light like the sun. They shine in the sky
only because the sun shines on them. They reflect the sun’s light just like the moon does.
The planets nearest to the sun are too hot to live on, while those farthest away are too
cold. Living things would not be able to survive on these planets.
The biggest planet by far is Jupiter. It’s larger than all the other planets put
together. The most beautiful is Saturn, the sixth planet from the sun. Its beauty comes
from the rings around it, which stretch for 65,000 kilometers.
10
Parts of the Face
People who cannot hear often learn to understand a spoken language not with
their ears but with their eyes. They watch the mouth of the person talking and follow the
movement of their lips. This is called lip-reading.
One of the most difficult sounds for a foreign student to make in English is the
“th” sound, as in the word ‘tooth‘. To make this sound, you put the tip of your tongue
under your upper teeth. Then you push the tongue up a little and the air comes out at the
sides of the mouth.
Some people think that the distance between your hair and your eyebrows is a
sign of how intelligent you are. The bigger your forehead is, the more intelligent you are
supposed to be.
Nowadays a person who doesn’t like his or her nose can have it changed with
plastic surgery. Plastic surgeons can change your face in many other ways, too. They can
make your cheeks a little rounder or higher under the eyes. If you don’t like your chin, a
plastic surgeon can break your jaw and re-make the whole lower half of your face. If you
think your skin looks too old and full of wrinkles, they can take the wrinkles away and
make you look twenty years younger.
Some people often disagree about men having beards and moustaches. Others
think that hair on a man’s chin makes him look friendly and attractive. Some others think
beards look all right but they don’t like to touch them. As for moustaches, there are some
people who think they are very attractive, and others who think that a moustache makes
a man look cold and mean.
Usually, only women wear make-up. They are lucky. They can put a little black
mascara on their eyelashes and some eye shadow on their eyelids, and look fresh and
attractive, even when they are really tired. But the morning after a very late night, a man
just has to look terrible.
11
Springs
If you pressed a tennis ball very hard, it would change its shape. If you then
stopped pressing it, it would go back to its original shape. A tennis ball is elastic. Rubber
is elastic. it returns to its original shape after being pressed, pulled or pushed. Springs are
elastic. If you pressed a spring, and then let it go, it would return to its original shape.
In the first picture a spring is being pressed hard. In the third picture the man
has let the spring go. It has returned to its original shape.
There are many different sorts and sizes of springs. The fifth picture shows the
sort of spring that is used in motor-cam. These springs make travelling by road
comfortable. If, because of bad roads, the springs of a car broke, the journey would be
very uncomfortable.
Another kind of spring is the spring balance. It weighs objects only up to 5 lb.
When an object is placed on the hook at the bottom of the balance, it pulls the spring.
There is a needle fixed to the spring. As the spring is pulled down the needle moves
down, too. When the needle is pointing to the figure 3, the weight of the object is 3 lb. If
we took the object from the hook, the spring would return to its original position. The
needle would move up, too. it would go back to zero.
What would happen if we placed a very heavy object, for example, something
weighing 50 lb., on the hook? The spring would break.
The fourth picture shows part of a bed. There is a mattress, filled with wool,
feathers, or hair. The mattress has been lifted at one corner to show the springs
underneath. These springs are made of thick wire. Springs of this sort are used in some
arm-chairs.
The word spring has many meanings. You already know spring as the name of
one of the four seasons of the year. If you look up the word in a dictionary, you will find
that it also means a place where water comes up from the ground. We often find springs
along the sides of hills and valleys. Some kinds of rock do not allow water to pass
through. Rain falls and sinks into the ground. This underground water cannot pass
through hard kinds of rock. When the water reaches the surface of the rock, it flows out.
There is a spring.
12
Intelligence
What makes one person more intelligent than another? What makes one person
a genius, like the brilliant Albert Einstein, and another person a fool? Are people born
intelligent or stupid or is the intelligence the result of where and how you live? These arc
very old questions and the answers to them are still not clear.
We know, however, that just being born with a good mind is not enough. In some
ways, the mind is like a leg or an arm muscle. It needs exercise. Mental exercise is
particularly important for young children. Many child psychologists think that parents
should play with their children more often and give them problems to think about. The
children are then more likely to grow up bright and intelligent. JE on the other hand,
children are left alone a great deal with nothing to do, they are more likely to become
dull and unintelligent.
Parents should also be careful about what they say to young children. According
to some psychologists, if parents are always telling a child that he or she is a fool or an
idiot, then the child is more likely to keep doing silly and foolish things. So it is probably
better for parents to say very positive things to their children, such as ~That was a very
clever thing you did’ or ‘You are such a smart child.’
What do you think? Are people born intelligent or do they become intelligent with
the help of good parents and teachers?
13
Spiders
An insect is a very small animal with six legs and a body with three parts. A
spider is not really an insect because it has four pairs of legs and its body has only two
parts.
Some spiders have eight eyes and some have fewer than eight but they are not
very good eyes and spiders do not see very well. They can smell and feel things very well
so they do not need their eyes. They have little teeth and when they bite something, for
example an insect or another spider, poison goes from these teeth into the insect. The
insect then cannot move and it may die. The spider then eats it. Some spiders can kill big
animals in this way but most spiders can kill only little insects.
When we think of spiders, we usually think of their webs. You can see a web in
the picture. Many spiders make webs like this to catch insects.
Webs are made of thin strings which come out of the spider’s body. The spider is
very clever and its web is very beautiful. First it makes the outside of the web. Then it
makes lines from the middle to the edges. Then, starting in the center, it makes circles
until the web looks like the one in the picture.
The web is sticky and when it is ready, the spider sits in the middle and waits. If
a fly or another insect touches the web, it cannot get way. The spider feels the web move
and walks across thc web to kill the insect. The spider has oil on its feet and it can walk
on the web without sticking to it.
Not all spiders make webs to catch insects. Some dig holes, go inside and make
a cover for the hole. When an insect touches the cover. the spider jumps out of the hole
and catches the insect.
Some spiders do not use holes or webs. They run after insects and catch them.
Some spiders can spit at other insects. The spit is sticky and when it hits the insect, it
cannot move.
But spiders have many enemies. Birds, bees, wasps and other bigger spiders
often kill them. The next time you see a spider, look at it carefully.
14
An Unusual Friend
I have an unusual friend - he likes to cook. He is an engineer whose work has
taken him all over the world. I do not know how many countries he has visited, but last
week he told me that he had been around the world twenty-two times. He likes to eat,
and he likes all kinds of food. When he is served a particularly delicious dish somewhere,
he learns how to make it. If no one will tell him how to make it (and many people won’t,
you know), ho experiments until he learns how to cook it himself
He buys cookbooks everywhere he goes. He must have about two hundred in his
library. I know he does not read all those languages, but he has cookbooks in French,
Greek, German, Spanish and in several other languages. Of course, most of his
cookbooks are in English.
I enjoy reading some of them myself. He has one written by the cook who
worked for President John Kennedy. In addition to telling how to make some very fine
French dishes, the author tells interesting stories about cooking for the First Family.
Of all his books, my favorite is a Chinese cookbook written by Mrs. Buwei Yang
Chao. Her husband, Dr. Yuen Ren Chao. is a famous professor and linguist. While he went
about China studying Chinese dialects, Mrs. Chao traveled with him and learned how to
prepare various regional Chinese dishes. The book is an excellent one to read if you wish
to learn how to cook real Chinese food. It is sometimes funny. For example, Mrs. Chao
says that, in cooking nothing takes the place of a little thinking. She writes, “If you cannot
get beef, get pork. If you cannot find an egg-beater, use your head.”
Some of my friends think it’s strange that a man should be interested in food and
cooking. However, some of the best cooks in the world are men, and a man is usually in
charge of cooking in the biggest and best restaurants of the world.
The same people who think it is strange for a man to be cooking are the first to
arrive when my friend invites them to dinner.
15
Flying Saucers
In 1947 the pilot of a small aeroplane saw nine strange objects in the sky over
Washington in the USA. He said that they looked like saucers. Newspapers printed his
story under the headline: Flying
Saucers.
Since then, all over the world, people have reported seeing similar strange
objects. No one knows what they are or where they come from. Some people say that
they do not exist, but others say that they have seen them. Usually people on the ground
have seen them but not always. Airline pilots also have reported seeing them and so
have astronauts - the men who fly spaceships.
Perhaps some people saw them only in their imagination. Perhaps some people
made a mistake. But airline pilots and astronauts do not usually make mistakes of this
kind. Captain Ed Mitchell, who was the sixth man to walk on the Moon in 1974, said that
he believes some flying saucers are real. Many other people now believe that these
strange flying objects are visiting the Earth from other worlds in space. ‘They have come
to look at us,’ they say.
The American Government tried to find out more about these objects. It listened
to a great many people who said they had seen them. But the government committee
could not decide on what the objects were. It called them UFOs, which is short for
Unidentified Flying Objects.
Some say they have seen people in the flying saucers! In 1964, a driver of a
police car in New Mexico saw a UFO landing a mile away. When he reached it, there were
two small figures standing near it. ~y looked like little men. When he reported it on his
radio, they got inside the object and flew away.
In 1973 two men were out fishing in the Mississippi. They say they saw a UFO
shaped like an egg. There were three creatures like men but their skins were silver in
color. They had no eyes. and their mouths were just slits. Their noses and ears were
pointed. They made the fishermen get inside the UFO for a while. Then the creatures
photographed them and took them back to the place where they had been fishing.
There are many other similar stories. Some are probably untrue. No one knows.
16
The Olympic Games

The Olympic Games began in Olympia, in Greece, in 776 BC (BC means before
the birth of Christ). They took place from time to time until AD 393. Then, they stopped.
At first, they lasted only one day and there was only one race. Later, there were more
races and other contests and the Games lasted several days. People all over Greece took
part.
In 1894 a Frenchman, Baron de Coubertin, thought of starting the Games again
and two years later the first modem Olympic Games took place in Greece at the place of
the first Games. Many countries took part. The Greeks did not do very well but they ran a
very long race called the Marathon. Since then the Games have taken place in many
different countries, every four years, except during the two World Wars. At the beginning
of every Games, someone lights a torch, using the rays of the sun, in Olympia. A number
of runners then carry the flame to the country where the Games are taking place. They
may have to go by sea or by air but at last the flame reaches the Games. There it lights a
big torch: the Olympic Flame. This is burning all the time that the Games are taking
place. At the end, the Flame goes out and the Games are over for another four years.
The country that is holding the Games has a lot to do. There are now many new
contests. For example, there are rowing, football, sailing, weight-lifting and many other
contests. All these need the right kind of place and there also have to be seats for the
people watching. There must also be places for the players to live in. There must be
places for the men and women from newspapers or from radio and television. Nowadays
all the world wants to see or hear about the Olympic Games, as quickly as possible. Have
you ever watched some of the Olympic Games on the television or heard about them on
the radio’?
In any one contest, the best man or woman wins a gold medal. The second gets
a silver medal and the third a bronze medal. Only three men and one woman have ever
won four gold medals at one Games.
Many exciting things happen in the Olympic Games. The best known took place
at the end of the Marathon Race in 1908 when the Games were held in London. The
Marathon Race is a race over 42,195 meters. It finishes in the stadium where everyone is
watching. The first man to enter the stadium was Dorando of Italy.
A few lines from the finishing line he fell down. As he was getting up, someone
took him by the arm to help him. Because of this, he could not be the winner. He did not
have the gold medal but the Queen of England gave him a gold cup.
17
Good Manners
We say that a person has good manners if he or she behaves politely and is kind
and helpful to others. Everyone likes a person with good manners but no one likes a
person with bad manners. ‘Yes,’ you may say, ‘but what are good manners? How do I
know what to do and what not to do?’
Manners change as time goes by. In the picture ‫ و‬you see Sir Walter Raleigh, a
famous Englishman, who lived four hundred years ago. He is laying his cloak over a
puddle of water so that Queen Elizabeth shall not get her feet wet. This pleased the
Queen at the time but no one would do this nowadays. You would look silly if you did this
for your teacher!
Different countries and different races have different manners. Before entering a
house in some Asian countries, it is good manners to take off your shoes. In European
countries, even though shoes sometimes become very muddy, this is not done. A guest in
a Chinese house never finishes a drink. He leaves a little, to show that he has had
enough. In a Malaysian house, too, a guest always leaves a little food. In England, a guest
always finishes a drink to show that he has enjoyed it.
We must find out the customs of other races, so that they will not think us ill-
mannered. But people all over the world agree that being well-mannered really means
being kind and helping others, especially those older or weaker than ourselves. If you
remember this, you will not go very far wrong.Here are some examples of the things that
a well-mannered person does or does not do.
He never laughs at people when they are in trouble. Instead, he tries to help
them. He is always kind, never cruel, either to people or animals. When people are
waiting for a bus, or in a post office, he takes his turn. He does not push to the front of
the queue. If he accidentally bumps into someone, or gets in their way, he says Excuse
me’ or ‘I’m sorry’.
He says ‘Please’ when making a request, and ‘Thank you’ when he receives
something. He stands up when speaking to a lady or an older person, and he does not sit
down until the other person is seated. He does not interrupt other people when they are
talking. He does not talk too much himself. He does not talk loudly or laugh loudly in
public. When eating, he does not speak with his mouth full of food. He uses a
handkerchief when he sneezes or coughs.

18
Aeroplane in a Storm
Our aeroplane was just beside the airport building. It did not look too strong to
me but I decided not to think about such things. We saw our luggage going out to it on
trolleys and being loaded from underneath the aircraft. Next, three men and three girls,
all in uniform, went over to the plane and entered it. Over the loudspeakers we were told
the plane was ready to leave and were asked to walk out to it. Everybody moved quickly
in order to get the seats they wanted. I was unable to get a seat near the tail, but the
plane looked stronger inside than it had from outside. I fastened my seat belt before we
took off and tried to forget my nervousness.
After an hour’s flying, I noticed black clouds ahead through my window. My
nervousness immediately returned. An electric sign flashed on: ‘Fasten your seat belts,
please.’, and one of the hostesses made a similar request over the loudspeakers. She told
us we were about to fly into a storm but added cheerfully there was nothing to worry
about. The plane shook all over, dropped about twenty feet and seemed to hang on one
wing. Then very suddenly it rose twenty feet and a great flash of lightning lit up the
passenger compartment. For five minutes the three hostesses did their best to give out
anti-sickness pills and comfort to the passengers. The plane rose and fell. Then we
noticed it was climbing higher and higher. The sky became light again and soon we were
flying steadily. The pilot had managed to get above the storm I realized then that the
plane was definitely stronger than it looked, but for all that I felt nervous.
19
Reading
Some people think that as more and more people have televisions in their
homes, fewer and fewer people will buy books and newspapers. Why should you read an
article in the newspaper when the TV news can bring you the information with pictures in
a few minutes’? Why should you read a novel, when a play on television can tell you the
same story with color, picture and action? Why should you read the biographies of
famous men and women, when an hour-long television program can tell you all that you
want to know?
Television has not killed reading, however. Today, newspapers and magazines
sell in very large numbers. And books of every kind are sold more than ever before.
Books are still a cheap way to get information and entertainment. Although some books
with hard covers are expensive, many books are published today as paper back books,
which are reasonably cheap. A paper back novel, for example, is almost always cheaper
than an evening at the cinema or theater, and you can keep a book for ever and read it
many times.
Books in the home are a wonderful source of knowledge and pleasure and some
types of books should be in every home. Every home should have a good dictionary.
Every home should have an atlas of the world, with large clear maps. It might be
expensive, but a good encyclopedia is useful, too, because you can find information on
any subject. In addition, it is useful to have on your bookshelves other non-fiction books
such as history books, science books, cookery books, books about medicine and health,
etc. It is equally important to have some fiction on your shelves, too. Then you can relax
with a good story, or from time to time you can take a book of poems off your shelves
and read the thoughts and feelings of your favorite poets.
20
Mountaineering
Most young people enjoy some form of physical activity. It may be walking,
cycling or swimming, or, in winter, skating or skiing. It may be a game of some kind -
football, hockey, golf, or tennis. It may be mountaineering.
Those who have a passion for climbing high and difficult mountains are often
looked upon with astonishment. Why are men and women willing to suffer cold and
hardship, and to take risks on high mountains? This astonishment is caused, probably, by
the difference between mountaineering and other forms of activity, to which men give
their leisure.
Mountaineering is a sport rather than a game. There are no manmade rules, as
There are for such games as golf and football. There are, of course, rules of a different
kind which it would be dangerous to ignore, but it is this freedom from man-made rules
that makes mountaineering attractive to many people. Those who climb mountains are
free to use their own methods.
If we compare mountaineering and other more familiar sports. we might think
that one big difference is that mountaineering is not a ‘team game’. We should be
mistaken in this. There are, it is true, no ‘matches’ between ‘teams’ of climbers, but when
climbers are on a rock face, linked by a rope on which their lives may depend, there is
obviously teamwork.
The mountain climber knows that he may have to fight forces that arc stronger
and more powerful than man. He has to fight the forces of nature. His sport requires high
mental and physical qualities.
A mountain climber continues to improve in skill year after year. A skier is
probably past his best by the age of thirty, mid most international tennis champions are
in their early twenties. But it is not unusual for men of fifty or sixty to climb the highest
mountains in the Alps. They may take more time than younger men, but they probably
climb with more skill and less waste of effort, and they certainly experience equal
enjoyment.
21
Some Strange Journeys
Jules Verne was a Frenchman who was born in 1828. He was not an inventor and
he was not a scientist, but he read a great many scientific books. He had a very strong
imagination and he loved adventure although he did not have many great adventures
himself. He wrote a number of exciting books about the things which he thought that
scientists and inventors would one day be able to do. At the time, his stories seemed like
fairy stories!
Many of Jules Verne’s attempts to look into the future, however, were
surprisingly accurate. For example, one book was called from Earth to the Moon. In this,
three men and a dog made a journey around the Moon. They did this in a hollow ‘ship’
tired from a gun. After going round the Moon, they returned to Earth and splashed down
into the sea not far from where the first real Moon travelers landed in July 1969. about a
hundred years later.
Jules Verne’s most famous book is Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. (A
‘league’ is an old word meaning about five kilometers.) In those days submarines had not
been invented but he describes an underwater ship very like a modem submarine. The
captain of the submarine in this book is called Captain Nemo (which means ‘no man’) and
he and his crew have many strange adventures and find many strange things at the
bottom of the ocean. This book has been made into a film. Perhaps you have seen it.
In all his books, Jules Verne used his scientific knowledge as well as his
imagination in describing future inventions. Sometimes he was wrong, of course, but
often the accuracy of his descriptions is very surprising.
Jules Verne died in 1905 when he was seventy-seven. Many years later, explorers
really did go to the Moon and one part of the Moon was given Jules Verne’s name.
22
Computer
A computer is a machine designed to perform work mathematically and to store
and select information that has been fed into it. It is run by either mechanical or
electronic means. These machines can do a great deal of complicated work in a very
short time. A large computer, for example, can add or subtract nine thousand times a
second, multiply a thousand times a second, or divide five hundred times a second. Its
percentage of error is about one in a billion billion digits. It has been estimated that
human beings making calculations average about one mistake per two hundred digits.
The heart of an electronic computer lies in its vacuum tubes, or transistors. Its
electronic circuits work a thousand times faster than the nerve cells in the human brain.
A problem, that might take a human being two years to solve, can be solved by a
computer in one minute, but in order to work properly, a computer must be given
instructions-it must be programmed.
Computers can be designed for many specialized purposes-they can be used to
prepare payrolls, guide airplane flights, direct traffic, even to play chess. Computers play
an essential role in modern automation in many plants and factories throughout the
world.
23
Tobacco and Lung Cancer
Many scientists have tried to produce lung cancer in rodents by exposing them
to tobacco smoke. They have not been successful. This is because of two serious
difficulties. Human smokers take in smoke through their mouths. Mice and other small
rodents breathe in smoke through their noses. The nose of a mouse has a very good filter
that stops particles from being drawn into his lungs.
Furthermore, mice and other small animals are quite sensitive to the poisonous
effects of nicotine or other substances in cigarette smoke. One scientist exposed mice
to cigarette smoke so that they were forced to breathe approximately the same amount
of smoke as human cigarette smokers breathe. Many of the animals went into
convulsions and died within a few minutes. The remaining animals lived only a short time.
The scientist reduced the concentration of smoke and the animals lived. But under such
conditions, it is doubtful that their lungs were any more heavily exposed to cigarette
smoke than the lungs of a nonsmoker sitting in a small smoke-filled room.
Because it is hard to produce lung cancer in rodents by forcing them to inhale
cigarette smoke, scientists often use a chemical test to support their theory that tobacco
can cause cancer. They shave the back of a mouse and, over a period of months, apply
chemicals found in tobacco and known to be arcinogens. The mouse develops cancer and
dies. Of the several hundred known chemicals that cause cancer, 15 are found in
tobacco.
24
Energy Sense Makes Future Sense
The world is running out of oil, and energy experts believe that there could be
serious shortages in ten years’ time. It was so cheap and plentiful that the whole world
came to depend on it.
The increase in the price of oil has brought the world to its senses. Governments
are searching for a suitable alternative, but so far in vain. They are considering how they
can make better use of the two other major fuels, coal and natural gas, but they have
found that neither can take the place of oil in their economies.
The answer would seem to lie in nuclear power stations. They need very little
fuel to produce enormous amounts of power and they do not pollute the atmosphere.
Their dangers, however, are so great and the cost of building them so high that some
governments are unwilling to invest in them.

Scientists have recently turned their attention to natural sources of energy: the
sun, the sea, the wind and hot springs. Of these, the sun seems the most promising
source for the future. However, solar energy can only be collected during daylight hours,
and in countries where the weather is unreliable. an alternative heating system has to be
included.
Another source of energy which would be more widely used is that generated by
hot water or steam from under the earth.
Many scientists are optimistic that new ways of generating large amounts of
energy will be successfully developed, but at the same time they fear the consequences.
If the world population goes on increasing at its present rate, and each individual
continues to use more energy every year, we may, in fifty years’ time, be burning up so
much energy that we would damage the earth’s atmosphere.
25
Madam Curie and Radium
A certain scientist had discovered that a metal called uranium gave off a kind of
radiation, which Marie Curie was later to call radioactivity. But where did this radiation
come from, and what was it like? Here was a secret of nature which she set out to
discover. Only a scientist could understand all that this pursuit meant. The experiments
were done most carefully again and again. There was failure, success, more failure, a
little success, a little more success. All seemed to prove that in the mineral, which she
was examining, there was some form of radiation which man knew nothing about.
Four years before this, Marie had expressed her thoughts in words much like
these: ‘Life is not easy for any of us. We must work, and above all we must believe in
ourselves. We must believe that each one of us is able to do something well, and that,
when we discover what this something is, we must work until we succeed.” This
something in Madame Curie’s own life was to lead science down a new path to a great
discovery.
At this time her husband left his own laboratory work, in which he had been very
successful, and joined with her in her search for this unknown radiation. In 1898, they
declared that they believed there was something in nature which gave out radio-activity.
To this something, still unseen, they gave the name radium. All this was very interesting,
but it was against the beliefs of some of the scientists of that day.These scientists were
very polite to the two Curies, but they could not believe them.The common feeling
among them was: “Show us some radium, and we will believe you.
There was an old building at the back of the school where Pierre Curie had been
working. Its walls and roof were made of wood and glass. It was furnished with some old
tables, a blackboard, and an old stove. It was not much better than a shed, and no one
else seemed to want it. The Curies moved in, and set up their laboratory and workshops.
Here for four very difficult years they worked, every moment that they could spare,
weighing and boiling and measuring and calculating and thinking. They believed that
radium was hidden somewhere in the mass of mineral dirt which was sent to them from
far away. But where?
The shed was hot in summer and cold in winter, and when it rained, water
dropped from the ceiling. But in spite of all the discomforts, the Curies worked on. For
them, these were the four happiest years of their lives.
Then, one evening in 1902, as husband and wife sat together in their home,
Marie Curie said: “Let’s go down there for a moment.” It was nine o’clock and they had
been “down there” only two hours before. But they put on their coats and were soon
walking along the street to the shed. Pierre turned the key in the lock and opened the
door. “Don’t light the lamps,” said Marie, and they stood there in the darkness. “Look! ...
Look!”
And there, glowing with faint blue light in the glass test tubes on the tables, was
the mysterious something which they had worked so hard to find: Radium
26
Hibernation
We share our environment with all sorts of birds, animals and insects. Some of
tern migrate to warmer places when to weather turns cold and come back in to spring.
Some of to animals stay wit you, but you will not see all of them through the winter,
because they hibernate in the cold winter.
In warm countries, where the winters are not very long or cold, hibernation is not
necessary. And in vow cold parts of to world, like the north of Russia, not many animals
hibernate, the ground is so hard that they cannot make a deep hole to spend their winter
in. But animals in a large part of the northern hemisphere spend every winter fast asleep.
They go to sleep in all kinds of places. Red squirrels, for instance, disappear
inside trees, bears use caves, frogs go deep under the mud, and many other animals dig
tunnels in the earth. A good many animals sleep under the snow, there is a lot of air in
loose snow, and this helps to keep the cold out
Some warm-blooded animals, like cats, dogs, or wolves do not need to
hibernate;they lead an active life which keeps up their usual body temperature oven in
very cold winter weather. But for a coldblooded creature, such as a frog or a snake, it is a
different matter. When the air temperature is below freezing, its blood temperature
drops, it cannot move about as usual, and it has to lie down and sleep.
Hibernation is more than sleep. It is a very deep sleep in which the animal’s
temperature drops to slightly over zero degrees centigrade, its heart beats very slowly,
and people who find it asleep often think that it is dead. The body feels so cold and the
creature may breathe only once every five minutes. A hibernating animal can not feel
any pain. It can even live in a poisonous atmosphere for a long time without any bad
effects.
How does a hibernating creature manage to live without eating? First of all, it
uses the supplies of fat that it has stored during the summer and autumn. Secondly, it
reduces movement too far below the ordinary level. Therefore, it hardly uses any energy
and needs hardly any food.

27
Sports and Games
Some people seem to think that sports and games are unimportant things that
people do at times when they are not working, instead of going to the cinema, listening
to the radio, or sleeping. But in actual fact, sports and games can be of great value,
especially to people who work with their brains most of the day, and should not be
treated only as amusements.
Sports and games make our bodies strong, prevent us from getting too fat, and
keep us healthy. But these are not their only uses. They give us valuable practice in
making eyes, brain and muscles work together. In tennis, for example, our eyes see the
ball coming, judge its speed and direction and pass this information on to the brain. The
brain then has to decide what to do, and to send its orders to the muscles of the arms,
legs, and so on, so that the ball is met and hit back where it ought to go. All this must
happen with very great speed, and only those who have had a lot of practice at tennis
can carry out this complicated chain of events successfully. For those who work with their
brains most of the day, the practice of such skills is especially useful.
Sports and games are also very useful for character training. In their lessons at
school, boys and girls may learn about such virtues as unselfishness, courage, discipline
and love of one’s country; but what is learned in books cannot have the same deep effect
on a child’s character as what is learned by experience. The ordinary day-school cannot
give much practical training in living, because most of the pupil’s time is spent in classes,
studying lessons. So it is what the pupils do in their spare time that really prepares them
to take their place in society as citizens when they grow up. If each of them learns to
work for his team and not for himself on the football field, he will later find it natural to
work for the good of his country instead of only for his own benefit.
28
paintings
Art experts have to be very cautious when buying paintings because deception is
quite common in the art world. Overpainting is one of the many problems facing art
museum directors who are responsible for buying and evaluating works of art, who also
have to be on guard for the false use of famous artists’ names, false copies, or even
fragments of paintings sold as whole works of art.
Overpainting, the most common problem, results from the fact that quite often
older works of art have been extensively changed. When a painting is carefully restored
or repaired according to the artists’ original design, it is called inpainting, but when the
repairs change the work to make it more marketable or appear to be more valuable, it is
overpainting. Modern science, however, now aids the buyers of works of art. Ultra-violet
light and X-ray machines can detect these alterations.
Another form of deception but one that is less frequent is putting the name of a
famous artist on an inferior painting, a practice which occurred quite frequently in the
1920’s and 1930’s when the level of art scholarship was not very high in the United
States and American buyers were easily fooled by European art dealers.
In addition to these two forms of deception, copies of famous paintings are
sometimes sold as original works of art because some of the old masters painted a
popular scene several times if it sold well or their students would copy their better works
to practice style and technique. Furthermore, there are dealers who have been known to
halve or quarter painting because it is much more profitable for them to sell four small
paintings than one large one.
29
Industrialization
At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, about 1800 AD, England led the
world in trade. British merchants were rich and powerful and supplied the money to set
up factories because they wanted to produce goods which they could sell all over the
world.
In Russia, industrialization came later. At the beginning of the twentieth century,
only a few Russians lived in towns or worked in industry. Most of them worked on the
land. After the 1917 Communist Revolution, the industrial workers in the few industries
which then existed formed a government and became the masters of their own factories.
Then the government set up new industries and planned what the farms and factories
should produce to meet the country’s needs. This was called the First Five-Year Plan.
Many countries are still underdeveloped. This means that they are not yet
industrialized, or are only partly industrialized. Most of them are in Asia, Africa, and Latin
America. They are the poorest parts of the world.
Every country, nowadays, wants to industrialize itself in order to increase its
wealth. For this purpose, factories must be built, workers must be trained, and power
must be supplied. To pay for all this, an underdeveloped country must have something to
trade with, like oil, gold, or pain. It must also develop better methods of working on the
land. Of course, the country would be in a safer position if it could sell a variety of goods
instead of only one kind.

When a country produces a variety of goods, it is usually able to sell some of
them. There will probably be a demand for some of its products at any given time even if
the others are difficult to sell. So its trade with foreign countries will be more regular and
continuous than trade carried on by a country which sells only one or two kinds of goods.
Educated people, such as scientists and engineers, are also needed. Self-
government and industrialization help people to enter their local industries. But they
cannot do the kind of work required of them without suitable training.
30
Predicting the Weather
In many cities and large towns, there are weather observatories, suitably
situated. The local observatory is probably familiar to most geography students. Here,
scientists make observations and collect and classify facts about the weather, either
recorded from their own observations or by special instruments which can also observe
more accurately than any human eye. An observatory of this kind belongs to the people
of the town where it is situated; its purposes are both scientific and practical.
Weather scientists, or weathermen as they are often called, are not only
interested in recording features of the weather at the time when they occur. They are
also interested in future occurrences, for example in tomorrow’s rain and next week’s
sunshine. It is their job not only to observe and describe the weather but to predict it.
They must tell people what kind of weather to expect in the future.
It is obviously important to a farmer, a fisherman, an airplane pilot, and a ship’s
captain to know what the weather will be like. Unless they know what weather to expect,
they cannot plan their activities or operations. A farmer may wait for the weather to
improve before he sows his grain; an airplane pilot may wait for the weather to improve
before he climbs into his plane and begins his journey. The meaning of the word
‘improve’ may, of course, differ for the farmer and the pilot. For the farmer ‘better
weather’ may mean wetter weather’ and for the pilot, it may mean ‘drier weather’.
But farmers, pilots, and captains are not the only people who are interested in
the weather. Almost everyone at some time listens to weather reports on the radio.
Outdoor games cannot be played unless the weather is suitable. Housewives listen to the
weathermen’s predictions (which are generally called weather forecasts) and wait for the
weather to improve before they wash a lot of clothes. Businessmen driving to work or
driving home after office hours need information about the surfaces of the roads and any
other information which will enable them to avoid accidents. Even school children may
want to know if it will be warm enough to go out without a coat.
How can scientific workers predict rain or sunshine, cold weather or hot weather?
They keep records of a very large number of occurrences_ rainfall, clouds of various
kinds, winds, temperatures. They observe the exact time and place of each occurrence,
and also the order and connection of the occurrences. They observe how weather
changes, how clouds and winds travel from one place to another, how a ‘cold front’
replaces a ‘warm front’. These facts enable them to form a map or chart of the weather.
They notice that weather changes often follow the same pattern, and so they are
able to take certain events as signs that others will follow. When a scientist makes a
prediction, this is because his knowledge of weather patterns and of causes and effects
has enabled him to take certain events as signs of others.
We all know that dark, heavy clouds are often a sign of rain. This means that
when we see such clouds, we often predict that it will rain after a short time. A
barometer, recording air pressure, also enables us to predict rain in the near future. But a
weatherman can obtain reliable information from distant places by radio and use the
information to predict rain two or three days before it actually arrives.
It is true that a weatherman does not always predict correctly. His estimates of
future occurrences are often slightly inaccurate and sometimes completely wrong. This is
not because he is careless or irresponsible but because the weather at a particular place
and time is not the result of a single cause but the result of several causes operating
together. For this reason, future weather events cannot be predicted without some error.
The weatherman is never in a position to know all the facts or all their possible patterns.

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1 ‫عبداللهي‬ Abdollahi20@gmail.

John is a student who isn’t interested in studying. He prefers to have a good

he received the following answer:

“Father is prepared. You ‘d better prepare yourself”

everywhere. The thought of danger was far away.

Suddenly just before midnight, the sailor on guard cried:”Iceberg!”

wear special white jackets when they are in competition.

Karate is another way of fighting without weapons. It became a sport in the

Kung fu is the Chinese form of karate.

can practice martial arts.

Energy and the Sun

million tons of grain and nearly ten million tons of wood.

plants and trees ages ago.

as rain. It courses down the mountains and is converted to electric power.

billionth of the sun’s entire output of radiant energy.

headaches. A continuous, strong headache, however, might be caused by a bad disease,

such as a brain tumor-an extra growth inside the brain.

psychiatrist to stop his headaches.

blood vessels larger only makes the headache worse.

They use drugs to make the blood vessels smaller.

come to college? Steps are usually made of cement or concrete.

America which has 110 storeys and is 412 meters high!

The Old Man and the Sea

by a big fish which was swimming very deep in the water.

the huge fish.

The Solar System

planet from the sun, Earth.

kilometers away. Then comes Venus.

cold. Living things would not be able to survive on these planets.

Parts of the Face

movement of their lips. This is called lip-reading.

sides of the mouth.

make you look twenty years younger.

a man look cold and mean.

just has to look terrible.

needle would move up, too. it would go back to zero.

weighing 50 lb., on the hook? The spring would break.

dull and unintelligent.

clever thing you did’ or ‘You are such a smart child.’

the help of good parents and teachers?

until the web looks like the one in the picture.

on the web without sticking to it.

and catches the insect.

I have an unusual friend - he likes to cook. He is an engineer whose work has

you know), ho experiments until he learns how to cook it himself

cookbooks are in English.

charge of cooking in the biggest and best restaurants of the world.

arrive when my friend invites them to dinner.

story under the headline: Flying

have astronauts - the men who fly spaceships.

to look at us,’ they say.

Unidentified Flying Objects.

radio, they got inside the object and flew away.

The Olympic Games

In 1894 a Frenchman, Baron de Coubertin, thought of starting the Games again

know what to do and what not to do?’

for your teacher!

always finishes a drink to show that he has enjoyed it.

a well-mannered person does or does not do.

me’ or ‘I’m sorry’.

handkerchief when he sneezes or coughs.

took off and tried to forget my nervousness.

After an hour’s flying, I noticed black clouds ahead through my window. My