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English Language Centre / Study Zone / Level 570 —

Advanced / Pulp Friction — Themed Reading / Pulp
Friction: Timed Skimming Exercise

Pulp Friction: Timed

Skimming Exercise

This exercise practises skimming —

that means reading very fast to find
only the main ideas of a text. You
have a very short time to read the
text and identify the main ideas.

1:09

Your score is: 86%.

You have completed the exercise.

SHOW QUESTIONS

Pulp Friction ONE BY ONE

Every second, one 1. The

hectare of the world's main
rainforest is idea
destroyed. That's of
equivalent to two paragraph
football fields. An one
area the size of New is:
York City is lost every
day. In a year, that A. ?

adds up to 31 million Scientists

hectares -- more are
than the land area of worried
Poland. This alarming about
rate of destruction New
has serious York
consequences for the City.
environment;
scientists estimate, B.
for example, that 137 Logging
species of plant, is
insect or animal destroying
become extinct every the
day due to logging. rainforests.
In British Columbia,
where, since 1990, C. ?

thirteen rainforest Governments

valleys have been make
clearcut, 142 species money
of salmon have from
already become logging.
extinct, and the
habitats of grizzly D.
bears, wolves and Salmon
many other creatures are
are threatened. an
Logging, however, endangered
provides jobs, profits, species.
taxes for the
govenment and
cheap products of all
2. The
kinds for consumers,
main
so the government is
idea
reluctant to restrict
of
or control it.
paragraph
two
Much of Canada's
is:
forestry production
goes towards making
A. ?
pulp and paper.
Canadian
According to the
forests
Canadian Pulp and
are
Paper Association,
especially
Canada supplies 34%
under
of the world's wood
threat.
pulp and 49% of its
newsprint paper. If B. ?
these paper products
Hemp
could be produced in
is
some other way,
a
Canadian forests
kind
could be preserved.
of
Recently, a possible
plant.
alternative way of
producing paper has C.
been suggested by
Canada
agriculturalists and
is
environmentalists: a
a
plant called hemp.
major
supplier
Hemp has been
of
cultivated by many
paper
cultures for
and
thousands of years.
pulp.
It produces fibre
which can be made D. ?
into paper, fuel, oils,
Canada
textiles, food, and
produces
rope. For centuries, it
a
was essential to the
lot
economies of many
of
countries because it
hemp.
was used to make b
the ropes and cables
used on sailing ships;
1
colonial expansion 3. The
and the main
establishment of a idea
world-wide trading of
network would not paragraph
have been feasible three
without hemp. is:
Nowadays, ships'
cables are usually A.
made from wire or Paper
synthetic fibres, but could
scientists are now be
suggesting that the made
cultivation of hemp from
should be revived for hemp
the production of instead
paper and pulp. of
According to its trees.
proponents, four
times as much paper B. ?

can be produced Hemp

from land using is
hemp rather than useful
trees, and many for
environmentalists fuel.
believe that the
C. ?
large-scale
cultivation of hemp Hemp
could reduce the has
pressure on Canada's been
forests. cultivated
throughout
However, there is a history.
problem: hemp is
D. ?
illegal in many
countries of the Hemp
world. This plant, so is
useful for fibre, rope, essential
oil, fuel and textiles, for
is a species of building
cannabis, related to large
the plant from which ships.
marijuana is
produced. In the late
1930s, a movement
4. The
to ban the drug
main
marijuana began to
idea
gather force,
of
resulting in the
paragraph
eventual banning of
four
the cultivation not
is:
only of the plant used
to produce the drug, A. ?
but also of the
Hemp
commercial fibre-
is
producing hemp
used
plant. Although both
to
George Washington
produce
and Thomas
drugs.
Jefferson grew hemp
in large quantities on B. ?
their own land, any
Many
American growing
famous
the plant today would
people
soon find himself in
used
prison -- despite the
to
fact that marijuana
grow
cannot be produced
hemp.
from the hemp plant,
since it contains C.
almost no THC (the It
active ingredient in is
the drug). illegal
to
In recent years, two grow
major movements for hemp.
legalization have
been gathering D. ?

strength. One group Hemp

of activists believes is
that ALL cannabis useful
should be legal -- for
both the hemp plant producing
and the marijuana many
plant -- and that the things.
use of the drug
marijuana should not
be an offense. They
argue that marijuana 5. The
is not dangerous or main
addictive, and that it idea
is used by large of
numbers of people paragraph
who are not criminals five
but productive is:
members of society.
A. ?
They also point out
that marijuana is less Hemp
toxic than alcohol or should
tobacco. The other be
legalization illegal
movement is because
concerned only with it
the hemp plant used is
to produce fibre; this dangerous.
group wants to make
B.
it legal to cultivate
the plant and sell the Recently,
fibre for paper and many
pulp production. This people
second group has have
had a major triumph been
recently: in 1997, working
Canada legalized the to
farming of hemp for legalize
fibre. For the first hemp.
time since 1938,
C.
hundreds of farmers
are planting this Hemp

crop, and soon we was

can expect to see made

pulp and paper illegal

produced from this in

new source. 1938.

(NOTE: This activity

D. ?
was written
Marijuana
before 2018, when
is
Canada legalized the
not
sale of recreational
a
marijuana.)
dangerous
drug.