INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
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MIDTERM EXAMINATION (Ks Online)

Date: 5/11/2021 Duration: 60 minutes
Closed book Exam Online

SUBJECT: READING 2 (ID: EL007IU)

Approval by the Department of English Lecturer:
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STUDENT INFORMATION

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INSTRUCTIONS (100-score scale, equivalent to 30% of the course)

1. Purposes:
‒ Test students’ skill in defining and understanding different reading skills (CLO 1, 2)
‒ Evaluate students’ knowledge and skills in applying the technique in doing reading exercises (CLO 3)
2. Requirements:
‒ Write your FULL NAME and STUDENT ID below the Student Information
‒ Read the instructions of each part/ section carefully and write the answer(s) on the page(s) provided
‒ All electronic devices, reference materials, discussion and material transfer are strictly prohibited.
Plagiarism in any forms is strictly punished.
‒ RENAME this file as Student ID Student name (e.g. ENENIU18106 Le Anh Vy) before submission


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SECTION 1: VOCABULARY (20 points)
Questions 1 – 10: (20 points: 2 points/each)
Choose the most suitable word with its CORRECT FORM (if necessary) to fill in the blanks.

ethnic menial concoct mundane
wake-up call substitute inherent intense
thrive scrutinize conservative urgency

Read the statements on the online form and type the answers there. Only use lowercase letters

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Section 2: READING COMPREHENSION (80 points)

PASSAGE 1: (30 points: 5 points/each)
For blanks 1-6, choose a paragraphs that fits into each numbered gap in the following newspaper article. The
paragraphs are display on the online form. There is one extra paragraph which does not fit in any of the gaps. Submit
the answers on the online form.

Nineteenth Century Life in English Cities

One of the greatest problems created by the The need for observation and ventilation
rise of great cities in Britain in the nineteenth century meant opening up the city and improving the process
was: where should the population be housed? The of circulation, much as an individual's health
early Victorians spent little on housing and their depended on the circulation of blood and oxygen. One
children died young; later Victorians spent more and answer was to demolish slums by driving railways to
experienced longer life. This was not a triumph of new stations or building new roads to allow the
medical cures, but of political action and public passage of traffic.
investment in engineering and preventive medicine.
4.
1.
Some charities most famously the Peabody
The borough engineer painted a lurid picture Trust in London built new model housing on the
of the conditions residents endured, explaining how cleared land, but to little avail. The new housing was
courts had no through ventilation, and normally often grim, forbidding barrack blocks, and rents were
contained 'the privy or ashpit common to all the too high for many of the people who were displaced
wretched dwellings, with its liquid filth oozing from the slums.
through their walls, and its pestiferous gases flowing
5.
into the windows'.
This change in the design of housing
2.
complemented the public investment in sewers and
These conditions caused considerable alarm water supply. At the same time, the income of most
to the more affluent members of society - and not working class people started to rise at an
simply from a charitable concern for the social unprecedented rate. The price of food started to drop
conditions of the poor. The warren of streets posed a with the ready availability of cheap imports from
threat to public order, allowing criminals to escape across the Atlantic -and the drop in the cost of feeding
observation in the 'rookeries' described by Charles a family resulted in higher spending on housing.
Dickens in Oliver Twist.
6.
The streets should be opened up to
The result was a great improvement i.n urban
observation by the police and sanitary inspectors. The
health. These houses were themselves attacked by the
lack of through ventilation, the putrefaction and
end of the century for their monotony, and reformers
stench described in Liverpool, was also a threat to
argued for a more imaginative form of 'garden suburb'
public health - of the rich as well as the poor.
-an architectural style which came to dominate the
Until the general acceptance of the germ new suburban council houses of the 1920s and 1930s.
theory of disease in the later nineteenth century,
fevers and epidemics were explained by 'miasmas',
exhalations from decaying matter which poisoned the
air.
3.

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PASSAGE 2: (20 points: 4 points/each)
Read the following magazine article and then answer the questions. Read the questions and the answers on the online
form. Give only one answer to each question. Submit the answers on the online form.

Sorry, he’s in conference

How much of your time at work today will be spent at meetings?
How much of that time was really spent working?
Jean-Louis Barsoux on an essential part of management

Managers spend a great deal of their time in meetings. According to Henry Mintzberg, in his book, The
Nature of Managerial Work, managers in large organisations spend only 22 per cent of their time at their desks, but
69 per cent of their time in meetings. So what are the managers doing in those meetings?
There have conventionally been two answers. The first is the academic version: managers are co-ordinating
and controlling, making decisions, solving problems and planning. This interpretation has been largely discredited
because it ignores the social and political forces at work in meetings.
The second version claims that meetings provide little more than strategic sites for corporate gladiators to
perform before the organisational emperors. This perspective is far more attractive, and has given rise to a large,
and often humorous, body of literature on gamesmanship and posturing in meetings.
It is, of course, true that meeting rooms serve as shop windows for managerial talent, but this is far from
the whole truth. The suggestion that meetings are essentially battle grounds is misleading since the raison d ’etre of
meetings has far more to do with comfort than conflict. Meetings are actually vital props, both for the participants
and the organisation as a whole.
For the organisation, meetings represent recording devices. The minutes of meetings catalogue the
changing face of the organisation, at all levels, in a more systematic way than do the assorted memos and directives
which are scattered about the company. They enshrine the minutiae of corporate history, they itemise proposed
actions and outcomes in a way which makes one look like the natural culmination of the other.
The whole tenor of the minutes is one of total premeditation and implied continuity. They are a sanitised
version of reality which suggests a reassuring level of control over events. What is more, the minutes record the
debating of certain issues in an official and democratic forum, so that those not involved in the process can be
assured that the decision was not taken lightly.
As Doug Bennett, an administrative and finance manager with Allied Breweries, explains: “Time and effort
are seen to have been invested in scrutinising a certain course of action.”
Key individuals are also seen to have put their names behind that particular course of action. The decision
can therefore proceed with the full weight of the organisation behind it. even if it actually went through “on the
nod”. At the same time, the burden of responsibility is spread, so that no individual takes the blame should disaster
strike.

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 Thus, the public nature of formal meetings confers a degree of legitimacy on what happens in them. Having
a view pass unchallenged at a meeting can be taken to indicate consensus.
However, meetings also serve as an alibi for inaction, as demonstrated by one manager who explained to
his subordinates: “I did what I could to prevent it - I had our objections minuted in two meetings.” The proof of
conspicuous effort was there in black and white.
By merely attending meetings, managers buttress their status, while non-attendance can carry with it a
certain stigma. Whether individual managers intend to make a contribution or not, it is satisfying to be considered
one of those whose views matter. Ostracism, for senior managers, is not being invited to meetings.
As one cynic observed, meetings are comfortingly tangible: “Who on the shop floor really believes that
managers are working when they tour the works? But assemble them behind closed doors and call it a meeting and
everyone will take it for granted that they are hard at work.” Managers are being seen to earn their corn.
Meetings provide managers with another form of comfort too - that of familiarity. Meetings follow a set
format: exchanges are ritualised, the participants are probably known in advance, there is often a written agenda,
and there is a chance to prepare. Little wonder then, that they come as welcome relief from the upheaval and
uncertainty of life outside the meeting room.
Managers can draw further comfort from the realisation that their peers are every bit as bemused and
fallible as themselves. Meetings provide constant reminders that they share the same problems, preoccupations
and anxieties, that they are all in the same boat. And for those who may be slightly adrift, meetings are ideal
occasions for gently pulling them round.
As Steve Styles, the process control manager (life services) at Legal & General, puts it: “The mere presence
of others in meetings adds weight to teasing or censure and helps you to 'round up the strays’.” Such gatherings
therefore provide solace and direction for the management team - a security blanket for managers.
Meetings do serve a multitude of means as well as ends. They relieve managerial stress and facilitate
consensus. For the organisation, they have a safety- net-cum-rubber-stamping function without which decisions
could not progress, much less gather momentum. In short, meetings are fundamental to the well-being of managers
and organisations alike.

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PASSAGE 3: (30 points: 3 points/each)
You are going to read some reviews for different novels. Choose from the articles (A-F) to answer the questions on
the online form. The articles may be chosen more than once. Indicate your answers on the online form.

BOOK REVIEWS
A Against Gravity - Gary Gibson

In 2088, following a terrorist nuclear strike on Los Angeles, America's political dissidents are rounded up and sent
to the Maze, a top secret research facility, to provide experimental hosts for military nanotech. This is a densely
packed Science Fiction thriller, and for all the twists and action the pace felt quite sedate to me. I think it might be all
the flashbacks - Gallon is the only viewpoint character, and his story is intercut with lengthy scenes of his time in the
Maze, which he has escaped from. This material is well depicted, particularly the gruesome failed experiments and
the survival-of-the-fittest tests.
Against Gravity is a good futuristic action novel, but the tagline "Live long enough and this could be your future" on
the front cover tells me Gibson intends this novel first and foremost as a comment on the world we live in today.

B The Space Eater - D. Langford

Wormhole travel is possible but only up to a diameter of 1.9cm. Through one such spyhole, the government discovers
that a distant colony world is developing weaponry based on Anomalous Physics which could endanger whole star
systems. Send in the marines! Oh no, wait, they don't make 1.9cm tall Marines. Enter Ken Jacklin, one of a team of
soldiers trained to charge headlong into death and be grown back in regeneration tanks, even when blown to a pulp.
Accompanying him is Rossa Corman, a woman who can send messages coded in pain back to Earth by jabbing herself
in the arm.
The premise that someone can be remade - body and mind - from jam hours after their death is a little hard to
swallow, but in general it's very hard to fault this novel. The characters are rounded and engaging, the story is lively
and well told with intrigue aplenty, and the science, however out there it may be, is explained in accessible and
thought-provoking terms. A very rewarding read.

C Soul Purpose - Nick Marsh

It shouldn't happen to a vet. Alan Reece, human wreck, is called out one night in late December to tend to a pregnant
cow, but the calf is born transparent. This is but the first in a global outbreak of transparent births, and Alan finds
himself at the centre of the oncoming apocalypse. Actually this book reminds me not a little of that book about
exploding sheep from a few years ago. It's not a very bad book, it's just not a brilliant book either. The prologue is
terrible; the epilogue is surprisingly good; in between it averages out.
This isn't the first metaphysical comedy adventure book I've read this year, so possibly it's arrived at the right time
to take advantage of a trend of some sort. However, "memorable" and "original" are two words I can't, in all sincerity,
use to describe it.

D The New World Order - B. Jeapes

In Ben Jeapes' latest novel invaders arrive on Earth to find the locals already at war; with their superior technology,
the invaders hammer both sides indiscriminately but end up uniting the humans against them. Except that these
invaders not only come armed with machine guns and airships but also with witchcraft, their special wise cadre
tapping the Earth's lay energy. This is a lively and intelligent novel from Ben Jeapes. A section at the end caps the
story with historical notes and a revelation that you may guess before, but which you should still find entertaining.

6

E Gifts - Ursula Le Guin
Gifts is a coming-of-age story, intended, at a guess, as a book for young teenagers, and as such has to be written with
scrupulous care. In this respect it is exemplary. Tightly-plotted, there isn't a word out of place. Quintessential Le
Guin, in fact.
This book is set on a world which might be Earth but could just as easily not be, in what is almost a default fantasy
land, with a scrape-an-agricultural-living uplands, and towns sufficiently far off that they barely impinge on the main
narrative.
The book is not quite a Wizard of Earthsea but it gets very close and as is usual with Le Guin's work, Gifts, despite its
quota of disputes, conflict and death, is a life-affirming experience, well worth reading by adults of all ages.

F Babylon - Richard Calder

Babylon has a lush feel to it. Calder writes erudite and richly detailed prose which situates the characters first in the
Victorian London of Jack the Ripper and later in the crumbling metropolis of a modern Babylon existing in a parallel
dimension. The book is strong on atmosphere and there are some marvellously melodramatic set pieces in which
major plot shifts are played out. I get the impression that Calder knows his material and wants the reader to be able
to visualise his world clearly but this enthusiasm for detail is also one of the novel's drawbacks. The pages are
cluttered with facts and at one point I began to feel some sympathy with the character who shouts out that she
doesn't know anything.
Whilst the book jacket promises blood and gore and there are intimations of ravishment scattered throughout the
first part of the novel, the second and third parts deliver little of either and the melodramatic quality of the set pieces
seems increasingly at odds with the cerebral working out of the novel's conclusion.

In which review is the following mentioned?
(See the information in the online form)



This is the end of the test.