1920 S6 T1 Revision Paper (Reading) - Reading Texts

Part A
Read Text 1 and answer questions 1-18 on pages 2-4 of the Question-Answer book.
Text 1
Hong Kong students must learn to co‐operate, not just compete

Kelly Yang says an obsession with being competitive means our children are missing out on the
many benefits of working with others.
[1] Last week, an old student of mine came home for a holiday from boarding school in the US. I asked
him what he found most difficult about going to a boarding school. Surprisingly, it was not keeping up
5 with the reading or managing his time. It was agreeing to help a friend, sharing his notes and lab work,
and contributing his best ideas to his class. In other words, it was learning to work as a team. It took him
the entire first year to learn the first rule of teamwork – how to put aside his own competitiveness. This
was no easy feat considering that during all his life growing up here, he was told that competitiveness is
the key to success.
10 [2] The long‐term ramifications of co‐operation are huge. Studies show that teamwork boosts
intelligence. At leading universities, leadership is the number‐one character trait that admissions officers
look for in applicants. Companies look for it too. In the business world, it is simply not enough to have a
bunch of brilliant people. If they can’t come together as a team, it doesn’t matter how bright they are
individually.
15 [3] Perhaps more importantly, teamwork feels good. When my student finally adjusted to the team
environment in his new school, he said that he felt like a giant weight had been lifted off his shoulders. It
turns out that he was exhausted from years of being so competitive, from always guarding his best ideas
and hoping his classmates – even his best friends – all failed their exams just so that the class curve would
be improved in his favour.
20 [4] Increasingly, here in Hong Kong, this is how many students think. It is how parents and teachers
encourage them to think. By emphasizing exam results, we are losing sight of the bigger picture. I fear
that in raising our children to be ultra‐competitive, we are also raising them to be incapable of surviving
– let alone thriving – in any kind of team.
[5] When I was ten, I loathed group projects. Teamwork, as far as I was concerned, was something
25 created by teachers to reduce the number of papers they had to grade. Who needs others when one can
be a lone tiger? Many parents share this sentiment. One mother said that she won’t let her son join the
school debating team because ‘he’d have to rely on other people to do well’. My thoughts exactly – when
I was ten.
[6] However, the ten‐year‐old me was wrong. It took many years to finally realise that the lone‐tiger
30 approach can only get one so far in life. To truly go the distance, we need the power of the collective. We
need to tone down the competitiveness and increase the co‐operation. We have to shift the focus away
from ‘I’ if we want to give all our ‘I’s a real chance.
2
Text 2
Kids Inc: Meet the youngsters running their own companies
[1] Thomas Suarez is working on a 3‐D printer which, he says, will work ten times faster than the model
that he uses at home. Thomas is anything but a typical teenager. At fifteen, he is a seasoned businessman.
He tinkers with 3‐D printing technology when he is not in school, or he codes new apps for smartphones.
He also has his own company, CarrotCorp, which he formed when he was only eleven years old and
5 already making his first apps.
[2] Between Hollywood and Silicon Valley, California has always celebrated youth culture and
entrepreneurs. Increasingly, these worlds are colliding as kids here start their own companies. When
asked if running a company is too much pressure for a teenager, Thomas replies: ‘There’s something that
makes me want to keep going and keep innovating.’ He laughs at being asked if he would be better off
10 outside climbing trees or riding a bike. ‘My interests will always lie in technology. Maybe I should go
outside more, but I just really like this stuff.’
[3] Thomas is completely self‐taught when it comes to coding – although he gets help from his parents
on the business end. He thinks it is a mistake that his school in Manhattan Beach and other California
public schools do not offer more technology courses. ‘A lot of kids my age want to learn, but there’s no
15 place to go because the schools aren’t teaching programing,’ he says. ‘It’s really frustrating.’ To fill the
void, he started an app club with some like‐minded friends so that they can help each other create new
apps.
[4] By contrast, at the Incubator School in Los Angeles, becoming a billionaire is the goal for many kids.
In class, they combine the jargon of corporate America with the language of video games. Instead of
20 graduating, they ‘level up’. They discuss profit‐sharing strategies for the school lemonade stand. Starting
a business is not only encouraged, it will soon become a mandatory part of the curriculum. ‘It’s an
entrepreneurship‐themed school that focuses on innovation,’ says Sujata Bhatt, the school’s founder and
head teacher.
[5] The school looks like a Silicon Valley start‐up, with motivational posters on the walls and laptops and
25 tablets on the desks – only the people using and creating the technology here are children aged eleven to
thirteen. When you ask the kids what they want to do when they grow up, nearly all of them say that they
want to run their own company. ‘We actually think a lot about that – what we want to do in the future,’
says eleven‐year‐old Ehsan Varnous. ‘We want to make our own businesses. In the beginning, it might just
be selling some cookies, but now it’s more like, “What are you going to do? How are you going to fund
30 it?”’
[6] When asked if she worries about creating greedy students or if the kids are too young for so much
business education, Ms Bhatt says that the school philosophy is to nurture an entrepreneurial spirit. ‘One
of the things we are exploring is the teamwork; we’re exploring collaborations; we’re exploring the ethics
of profit sharing. Social entrepreneurship is as important as money‐making business entrepreneurship,’
35 she says. ‘We want kids to look at the world and say, “These are problems that need to be solved, and
what are the tools I need to solve those problems to make the world a better place?”’
END OF PART A READING PASSAGES
3
Part B1
Text 3
Tim Kovar, Professional Tree‐Climber

Q: Tell me about yourself.
A: I’ve been climbing trees, technically, for over twenty years. I started off as an arborist in 1993, but eventually
I took a different path. Now I teach people how to access, connect and experience the top of trees in a safe
manner. Some of my students include adventure seekers, nature lovers, poets, birders, arborists, canopy
5 researchers, eco‐tourism guides, photographers, film crews, camp directors, etc.
Q: How did you get from arborist to where you are today?
A: I started doing tree work with the founder of the world’s first tree‐climbing school. At that time, I had no
idea he had a public tree‐climbing school. I was taught how to climb for tree work, which was a very physical,
demanding activity back then.
10 Q: What was the school like?

A: Because of the upper‐body strength needed to climb to do tree work, I thought it would be all athletes, but
when I arrived, there were people from six to seventy‐five years old. Specifically, there were these two
seventy‐five‐year‐old ladies who caught my eye, and I was thinking there was no way they could do this. I
was in my early twenties, and it was a good workout for me. But I was shown some different techniques
15 and tools which made climbing much easier than what I’d been doing for tree work. It took longer, but it
was much more user friendly. With tree work, time is money, but this was an inspirational tree‐climb,
climbing at your own pace. Before you knew it, these women were twenty‐five feet up, sitting on a branch.
They were tickled pink.
Q: This sounds so nice.

20 A: Yeah. I remember looking up in the tree that day and seeing a seven‐year‐old girl climbing next to a fifteen‐
year‐old punk rock kid who was next to a conservative couple and a hippie chick trying to communicate to
a family from Germany. It was awesome. Everybody was sharing this new experience together. People were
just being people. I thought, ‘There’s something magical happening right now.’ Something shifted in me at
that point. I thought, ‘This has to get out into the world.’ I started volunteering all the time after that.
25 Q: So what do you do now?

A: I have an international tree‐climbing school. Students from around the world come to my home‐base
location near Portland. I also travel around our planet, introducing the art of inspirational / technical tree‐
climbing to novices and experts.
4
Q: Can you make a full‐time living at this?
30 A: Yes and no. Teaching tree‐climbing in Oregon is a seasonal activity; not many people want to climb trees in
the Pacific Northwest in February. So I schedule my international travel during the winter months. I usually
hit Hawaii, Costa Rica, Peru, Chile and / or the Amazon every year. I’ve also been teaching over in Denmark
and Sweden the past few springs. Inspirational tree‐climbing is spreading its roots around the world. I have
been fortunate to climb trees in forty‐nine states (missing Alaska) and in over fifteen countries. It’s been a
35 true blessing to experience so many different arboreal ecosystems around the world.
Q: Are some trees harder to climb than others?

A: Some trees are more challenging than others. It usually depends on the climate and what’s living in the
tree. In the Amazon, you have to climb slow [ . . . ] due to [ . . . ] the creepy‐crawlies that reside in the tree.
If you go too fast, they could be attracted by you. There are killer bees, ants, things with stingers and teeth
40 – remember, you are visiting their home. We also want to be very mindful of the ecosystem that we are
climbing in. Some of these ecosystems have taken hundreds of years to get where they are today. It’s like
climbing in a coral reef. We take the utmost care of being respectful of where we are.
Q: Do people sleep in the trees?

A: Yes. Sleeping in trees is magical. We use a specially‐designed hammock called a ‘Treeboat’. Since it ties off
45 in four corners, it’s very stable and much safer than your typical hammock. It’s a totally different experience
when you sleep in a tree. The sounds of animals at night are enchanting, and the way the moonlight filters
through the leaves and branches are just amazing. After a good night’s sleep aloft, you arise to a symphony
of bird songs.
Q: What if you have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night?

50 A: That question always comes up! We try to think of it ahead of time so it isn’t an issue. In the oak tree here,
you can come down and go, but if you’re 200 feet up a giant redwood or in the Amazon, we have specially
marked bottles.
Q: This sounds like such a nice job.

A: For myself, tree‐climbing is more about experience you receive when you are in the trees, rather than the
55 actual climbing of the tree itself. Trees are everywhere. Even in the largest city, once you climb into the
crown of a tree, you are surrounded by nature, and your worldly problems seem to sink back to the ground.
I love introducing folks into this unique realm where time seems to stand still and nature comes back alive
– ‘Treetime’.
END OF PART B1 READING PASSAGES

END OF READING PASSAGES

1920 S6 T1 Revision Paper (Reading) - Reading Texts

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

1920 S6 T1 Revision Paper (Reading) - Reading Texts

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

1920 S6 T1 Revision Paper (Reading) - Reading Texts

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Part A

Hong Kong students must learn to co‐operate, not just compete

Kids Inc: Meet the youngsters running their own companies

END OF PART A READING PASSAGES

Tim Kovar, Professional Tree‐Climber

10 Q: What was the school like?

Q: This sounds so nice.

25 Q: So what do you do now?

Q: Are some trees harder to climb than others?

Q: Do people sleep in the trees?

Q: What if you have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night?

Q: This sounds like such a nice job.

END OF PART B1 READING PASSAGES

You might also like