English Revision Paper

Dear boys and girls,
the teachers have noticed that the questions in your revision paper do not match the answers in our answer key so I have posted the correct questions here. You may want to change the questions in your paper.
Please do these questions instead.
Thanks.


SECTION H: COMPREHENSION ( 10 x 2 marks )
Read the passage below and answer questions 71 to 80.


Wen Bo has been a nature lover since he was a child. When he grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, nature was still part of Dalian, China, even for an urban kid like him. There were trees as tall as a five-storey building along the streets. The seasons change distinctly in Dalian, and his “toys” were mostly from nature like fallen leaves and bugs.

“I used to be able to see white clouds and blue sky above me, and there were always starry, starry nights to capture our imaginations,” he said.

That was how he spent his childhood, which was very healthy and related to nature, unlike today’s urban kids, who are obsessed with Internet games and the TV.
With hardly any chance to frolic among the trees and flowers and appreciate nature, today’s kids are less privileged.

Wen Bo continued, “As I grew older, I began to witness the rapid process of urbanisation, which changed much of the natural surroundings of my childhood. Many trees were felled to expand the road network. Wilderness areas where we used to catch butterflies, dragonflies, tadpoles and fish were cleared to build houses. Thus, my childhood memories have lost their ‘setting’.”

Being an urban child, Wen Bo had received a good education. He was an idealist. When he became a teenager, he started to think about the career he wanted to pursue. He was not contented to have a nine-to-five deskbound job. He wanted to do something different – something that his peers would not dare dream of doing. As China was just starting to open up to the world, he began to develop a huge curiosity about places and people outside the country. He also began to learn about non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that worked to save the environment, and came to realise that the best contribution one could make was to save one’s immediate environment.

“In high school, I started to organise environmental clubs and activities. This passion grew throughout my university years. At the end of 1995, by uniting a number of student groups in Beijing, we created the China Green Student Forum. This organisation became fairly well-known and this was how Pacific Environment learnt about us and introduced us to Chet Tchozewski, the Executive Director of the Global Greengrants Fund, in 1996. In 1998, I travelled to America for six months under an environmental programme of the National Committee on US-China Relations. There I established connections with the Global Greengrants Fund, and have been working for this NGO since 1999,” Wen Bo added.

Wen Bo has since been very active in his environmental work and was recently named by Time Asia as one of the key environmentalists in China.





For each question from 71 to 80, write your answer in the space provided.

ALL ANSWERS MUST BE BASED ON THE PASSAGE AND IN COMPLETE SENTENCES.

71. Explain clearly what the author means by “nature was still part of Dalian” (Paragraph 1)
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72. How are Wen Bo’s ‘toys’ different from the toys of today’s urban kids?
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73. What does the word “obsessed” in paragraph 3 tell us about what the writer thinks of the childhood of today’s kids?
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74. What were the two changes to Wen Bo’s childhood surroundings due to urbanisation?
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75. In the sentence “He wanted to do something different,” what do you think Wen Bo wanted to do?
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76. Which phrase in the 5th paragraph tells you that Wen Bo was very interested in knowing more about what was happening in other countries?
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77. How was the China Green Student Forum formed?
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78. How did the visit to America in 1998 help Wen Bo in his environmental work?
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79. In what way was Wen Bo’s efforts in environmental work recognised?
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80. Why do you think it is not surprising that Wen Bo becomes an environmentalist?
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======= END OF BOOKLET B ======
Please remember to check your work thoroughly.