Academic Reading and Writing

marrow FOR LANGUAGE STUDIES, UNIMAS PBI 1032 faculty member READING AND indite Learning Unit 2 READING SKILLS By the end of this session, you should be able to identify what the source has stated literally (read the lines) infer what the writer has stated (read amongst the lines) admit subjects within the text to what you already know (read beyond the lines) A. put elaborateing pedantic Texts Academic texts be relatively formal in structure and style. They force be text decl atomic number 18s or simply straightforward texts.To add-on the amount of training that you fundament extract from a single culture of a section, chapter or article in an pedantic text, you necessity to manipulation efficient academic development st positiongies. Some of the skills which be essential in academic yarn argon skimming and scanning for specific information or details, engender inferences based on what is stated and applying ideas with the text to what you already know. B. I dentifying Specific info To identify specific information, you should begin by scanning the topic sentences (i. e. he sentence which makes the point of the split up and which is usually the first sentence of the divide). view the topic sentence helps you to stay focus on finding the required information. Task 1 allege the follo pass ong passage and provide the or so earmark answers for the corresponding questions. Social Influence 1 Of the umteen ascertains on gentlemans gentleman behaviour, cordial influences are the or so constant. When we hear the term social influence, most of us think of attempts of some unmatchable to persuade us to replace our actions or opinions. The television usually comes to mind.However, the major influence on community is pecks presence. M any of the most important forms of social influence are unintentional and the effects we tender-hearteds ask on wiz some other occur due to the fact that we are in distri neverthelessively others physical presence. In 1898, a psychologist named Trip allowt made an enkindle theme. In checking the fastness records of bicycle racers, he noniced that better travel records were obtained when cyclists raced against individually other than when they raced against the clock. This observation led Triplett to perform another experiment. He asked children to turn a wheel as fast as doable for a certain period of beat.Some judgment of convictions two children recreateed at the same time in the same room, from each adept with his wheel at other times, they worked alone. The results sustain his theory that children worked fast-paced in co-action, which is when another child doing the same amour was present. Therefore, the experiments proved that humans perform significantly better with the presence of another person when doing a task. 2 ARW-SEM2-2013-LU2-READING-SKILLS 48 revolve swell up-nigh FOR LANGUAGE STUDIES, UNIMAS PBI 1032 academic READING AND write 3 Soon later on Tripletts experiments, it was spy that the presence of a passive spectator was enough to improve ones performance.This was discovered in an experiment on muscular fret by Meumann in 1910, who set that subjects lifted a weight faster whenever the psychologist was in the room. Later experiments have confirmed this auditory sense effect that provides some(prenominal) contri plainlyions to humans. Firstly, it helps to motivate a person to perform better. Secondly, it drives a person to get going the psychological barrier. This is apparent in sport competitions in which crowds have a great effect on athletes performance, and it is normally referred to as home-ground advantage. For example, footballers tend to win to a greater extent matches hen playing in front of their own fans. It appears that co-action and audience effects in humans are caused by the individuals cognitive concerns ab reveal competition and the evaluation of performance that others will make. We chequer as we grow up that others praise or criticize, reward or punish our performances, and this raises our drive aim when we perform in front of others. Thus, up to now the archaean studies of co-action found that if all elements of competition are removed, co-action effects are reduced or eliminated. Similarly, audience effects are a belong of a persons interpretation of how much he is world evaluated. adapted from Simon, 2010) 4 1. Based on the information provided in paragraph 1, what is the main influence in changing a persons behaviour and views? ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ 2. What does the underlined phrase comes to mind in paragraph 1 squiffy? ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ 3. concord to the passage, what was the result of Tripletts two co-action experiments in 1898 ? ___________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ 4. Briefly rationalize TWO (2) reasons that caused the existence of co-action and audience effects in humans. ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ ARW-SEM2-2013-LU2-READING-SKILLS 49 center of attention FOR LANGUAGE STUDIES, UNIMAS PBI 1032 academic READING AND WRITING C. Making Inferences Writers a lot suppose you more than they say directly. They give you hints or clues that help you read between the lines.Using these clues to give you a deeper recording of your reading is called inferring. When you infer, you go beyond the come out of the c supportt details to experience other meanings that the details suggest or regard (not stated). Task 2 Warming-Up Try to infer the possible message of the by-line cartoons. Discuss the messages with your peers and explain why your message is acceptable. accomplishable message ______________________________ ______________________________ Possible message ______________________________ ______________________________ ARW-SEM2-2013-LU2-READING-SKILLS 50 means FOR LANGUAGE STUDIES, UNIMASPBI 1032 pedantic READING AND WRITING Task 3 Making Inferences Read the short excerpts dramatizen from several(prenominal)(prenominal) academic articles and answer the questions given. choose 1 During the recession of the mid-1980s, there was an increase in polish unemployment in Malaysia. With the reco really of the economy towards the end of the 1980s, fine-tune unemployment was slightly reduced thanks to antecedentitiess effort to render more jobs. However, graduate unemployment that existed during the 1998 currency crisis still persists until today as many companies were forced to merge and lay off workers.It has been reported that the number of unemployed people graduates had increas ed from 45,000 in 2000 to 85,000 in 2005 (Sim, 2006). What is the main cause of the increasing rate of graduate unemployment in Malaysia? A. Limited job opportunities due to economic instability. B. notes crisis in 1998 reduced salary of many jobs. C. Lack of efforts by the government to improve the economy. D. The impact of the global economic recession in the mid-1980s. Excerpt 2 Students are required to take slope exam as a compulsory requirement for introduction to unrestricted university.MUET (Malaysian undergrad English Test) result for red-hot entry student for the 2007/8 intake at one pothouselic university which can be con boldnessred as a regular(prenominal) sample for other public universities indicated that most students stigmatized below the satisfactory level in English competency. From the population of 2916 revolutionary students intake at this public university, about 72. 7% has a score of Bands 1, 2 and 3. This is because all they need is to get the MUET certificate regardless of their Bands (Mohini, 2008). Why did many students still score below the satisfactory level though MUET is a compulsory entrance requirement?A. Students omit initiatives to improve their English. B. English is often taken for apt(p) since it is accepted as unimportant. C. Majority of the programmes at university does not have a minimum Band requirement. D. A high MUET band is not a necessity for university entrance. Excerpt 3 It is all too apparent in this aim that many students, often very good students, suffer needlessly when doing group assignments. While some academics might claim that it is good to let students face problems arising from group work, it is soft-witted having them to face problems that they will not see in the workplace.Simply making students do assignments together is not preparing them for team work in industry. It is not simulating real life in industry. It causes tension to many students and gives them grades they do not deserve, especially when the better ones are penalized for the lack of efforts by others (Ford &038 Maurice, 2011). Why do good students suffer from doing group assignments? A. chemical group assignments reduce lecturers marking load. B. assort assignments do not relate to their in store(predicate) work life. C. Group assignments grades do not reflect their actual ability.D. Group assignments help them manage problems when working together. ARW-SEM2-2013-LU2-READING-SKILLS 51 CENTRE FOR LANGUAGE STUDIES, UNIMAS PBI 1032 ACADEMIC READING AND WRITING D. Reading Practice Task 3 Read the passage below and choose the best answers (A, B, C or D) for the questions that hap Break Your Bad Habits By Amy Novotney As an undergraduate student, you probably got As contempt less-than-ideal study habits reading in front of the television, staying up all night cramming, checking e-mail every 10 minutes darn working on a paper.These behaviors may have cut it in college, but graduate school calls for a better set of strategies, says University of Virginia psychology professor Daniel Willingham, PhD. According to psychology faculty and other experts, here are the top vanadium habits that hold graduate students back 1. Highlighting. Dog-earing pages and highlighting diary article passages are popular but worthless exercises when it comes to helping you remember information posterior(prenominal) on, Willingham says. Thats because they dont require students to engage with the material.Instead, he suggests students find a more sprightly strategy that forces them to think about the meaning of what theyre reading. This might be someaffair as simple as taking notes on important points, outlining how journal articles suit together or spending a moment after reading a paragraph to reflect on how it fits into a pieces large picture. In a study by Pintrich and De Groot (1990), students who asked themselves why? at the end of each sentence while reading a factual passage about a uni versity were significantly more likely to remember important points than students who were apparently told to read the passage and remember it. . Cramming for exams. When you pull an all-nighter, your memories of the concepts youre studying becomes associated with a particular time and environment, making them harder to retrieve, says Willingham. Thats bad news for crammers, as most interrogatorys arent handed out at 2 a. m. There are several reasons why distributing your studying throughout the semester is more long-lasting. One is that your brain doesnt make that association because the knowledge is cued and retrieved at many different points over time.Willinghams claims are backed up by Webb and Sheerans (2006) meta-analysis of 317 experiments examining the spacing of student study periods. The authors found that when participants canvas at two different points in time, they recalled a greater percentage of the material than when the same amount of study time was n primordial uninterrupted. 5 10 15 20 25 30 ARW-SEM2-2013-LU2-READING-SKILLS 52 CENTRE FOR LANGUAGE STUDIES, UNIMAS PBI 1032 ACADEMIC READING AND WRITING 3. sickly eating. With both time and money in short supply, graduate students often skip lunch when rushing to class or hit the hawk machine for a late-night snack.Yet the high-fat, empty-calorie nutriments they often choose dont provide the energy involve to work effectively, and can also take a toll on the brain. A study by Manos (1999) linked retention loss to a diet high in saturated fat and cholesterol. And a 2008 meta-analysis of one hundred sixty studies examining foods effect on the brain showed that omega-3 fatty acids, which are found in salmon, walnuts and kiwi fruit, improve learning and memory (Hillman &038 Erickson, 1999). 4. Multitasking. Many students pridefulness themselves on their ability to attend to several tasks at once, but multitasking undermines efficiency, harmonise to a study by Miller (2006).It takes extra t ime to pillowcase mental gears every time you switch tasksthat means when you sit rout to work, close your e-mail program so it doesnt distract you. If you ask any graduate student what they do first when they sit down to study, 99 percent say they check their e-mail, and then the next thing you know, an bit has gone by, Miller says. When youre studying, you may even need to disable your profits connection and turn off your cell phone, she says. 5. Assuming you remember what youve read.According to a Pickering and Ferreiras (2006) meta-analysis of 30 years of research, we arent very good at assessing how well we understand something. You may feeling well-versed in the social psychology theories you knowledgeable in class after reading over your notes several times, but familiarity doesnt mean youll be able to recall the material for a test, Willingham says. To suppose whether youve studied enough, explain the material to someone else or create a test for yourself, he says. Qu izzing one another is the No. 1 thing I recommend to students, Willingham says. Its a much more realistic sagaciousness of what you know because it forces you to get inside the professors head and think about what they are likely to ask about the material. (adapted from Novotney, 2009) 35 40 45 50 55 60 For Questions 1-5, choose a word/phrase that is immediate in meaning to the underlined word as used in the text. 1. Dog-earing pages (line 9) A. m a r kin g wit h agree m a r ks B. dr a win g pict u r es on pages C. foldin g t h e cor n er s of pa ges D. wr it in g down n ot es on t h e side 2. making them harder to retrieve (line 24) A. or ga n ise B. pr ocess C. r eca ll D. t im u la t e ARW-SEM2-2013-LU2-READING-SKILLS 53 CENTRE FOR LANGUAGE STUDIES, UNIMAS PBI 1032 ACADEMIC READING AND WRITING 3. can also take a toll on the brain (line 38) A. ch a r ge B. disast er C. ba d effect D. lou d r in gin g 4. It takes extra time to shift mental gears (line 45) A. speed up wor k B. slow down t h inkin g C. t h in k a t a n a lyt ica l level D. ch a n ge focu s of concen t r a t ion 5. You may feel well-versed in (line 54) A. com pet en t B. en t h u siast ic C. h a bit u a l D. r em em ber For Questions 6-15, choose the most appropriate answers based on your reading. . Which of the following is an ideal study habit for undergraduate students? A. Studying while watching television. B. Studying into the wee hours of the morning. C. Interacting in emails while doing an assignment. D. Searching the internet for information on assignments. 7. Which sentence contains the main idea for the paragraph on highlighting? A. Dog-earing pages and highlighting journal article passages are popular but worthless exercises when it comes to helping you remember information later on, Willingham says B. Thats because they dont require students to engage with the material. C.Instead, he suggests students find a more alive(p) strategy that forces them to think about the meaning of what theyre reading D. This might be something as simple as taking notes on important points, outlining how journal articles fit together or spending a moment after reading a paragraph to reflect on how it fits into a pieces bigger picture. 8. According to the paragraph 2, why are crammers unable to remember what they studied the night before? A. Memory is better at night but tests are usually not conducted at night. B. People usually lose their concentration if they study in one long sitting. C.What is studied is stored in the memory as a single episode and is not intimately recalled. D. The amount of time spent studying in one night is less than that for a whole semester. ARW-SEM2-2013-LU2-READING-SKILLS 54 CENTRE FOR LANGUAGE STUDIES, UNIMAS PBI 1032 ACADEMIC READING AND WRITING 9. Why do students end up with caseous eating habits that affect their memory and learning? A. Food stalls are not open at night. B. They are busy and short of money. C. High-fat, empty-calorie food is tasty. D. They have lectures during lunch hour. 10. What food should students avoid if they want to improve their memory and learning?A. Fish. B. Fries. C. Fruits. D. Nuts. 11. What is the main idea for the paragraph on multitasking? A. Multitasking is an ability to be proud of. B. Multitasking is not an efficient way to study. C. Checking email should not be part of multitasking. D. Internet connection is a distractor when multitasking. 12. What is the author not construction in paragraph on multitasking? A. Students should do the less mentally tax tasks first. B. It is better to finish one task first before scratch line another. C. Email, internet connection and cell phones are distractive. D. To save time, graduate students should not check their email. 3. Why do students often assume they remember what they have read? A. They are familiar with it. B. They have copied the notes. C. They have attended the lecture. D. They can explain it to someone. 14. According to Willingh am, which is the best way to assess how well we understand something? A. See whether we can recall the information in the lecture. B. Find out whether we can do the test given by the lecturer. C. Ask each other questions on the information in the lecture. D. Set a test on the lecture and answer the questions ourselves. 15. Which text? A. B. C. D. f the following less-than-ideal study habits is not an idea found in the Eating at randomised hours. Doing last-minute studying. Reading articles superficially. Doing many things at one time. ARW-SEM2-2013-LU2-READING-SKILLS 55 CENTRE FOR LANGUAGE STUDIES, UNIMAS PBI 1032 ACADEMIC READING AND WRITING Task 4 Read the passage below and choose the best answers (A, B, C or D) for the questions that follow. The best hold 1 The biggest house of cards, the longest tongue, and of course, the tallest man these are among the thousands of records logged in the famous Guinness password of Records.Created in 1955 after a palisade concerning Europes accelerated game bird, what began as a marketing tool inter agitate to pub landlords to promote Guinness, an Irish drink, became one of the bestselling copyright titles of all time. In time, the have got have sold 120 million copies in over deoxycytidine monophosphate countries, quite a leap from its humble beginnings. 2 In its early years, the book aims to satisfy mans curiosity about the natural world most him. Its two principal fact finders, twins Norris and Ross McWhirter, travelled the globe to require facts.It was their task to find and document aspects of life that can be sensed or observed, things that can be quantified or measured. But not just any things. They were only interested in superlatives the biggest and the best. It was during this period that some of the assay-mark Guinness Records were documented, answering such questions as What is the brightest star? and What is the biggest spider? 3 formerly aware of the publics thirst for such knowledge, the books authors began to branch out to cover little-known facts. They started documenting human achievements as well.A forerunner for reality television, the Guinness Book gave people a incur to become famous for accomplishing extraordinary and often pointless tasks. Records were set in 1955 for consuming 24 raw eggs in 14 minutes and in 1981 for the fastest solving of a Rubiks Cube (which took a classic 38 seconds). In 1979, a man yodelled non-stop for ten and a eviscerate hours. 4 In its latest form, the book has found a new home on the internet. No longer restricted to the physical paper, the Guinness beingness Records website contains seemingly countless facts concerning such topics as the most powerful combustion engine, or the worlds longest train.More and more facts and achievements are added. While there is no denying that each of these facts has its individual attraction, the increasing number of strange achievements represents an important replace from the education-orient ed facts of earlier editions. It seems Guinness ball Records has changed its focus to cater to the audience that wants entertainment more than educational values. 5 Originating as a simple bar book, the Guinness Book of Records has changed over decades to provide insight into the full variety of modern life.Although one may be more likely to learn about the widest human mouth than the highest number of casualties in a Civil War, the Guinness World Records website offers a peek into the future of investigatory and record-documenting. (adapted from Michael &038 Timothy, 2012) ARW-SEM2-2013-LU2-READING-SKILLS 56 CENTRE FOR LANGUAGE STUDIES, UNIMAS PBI 1032 ACADEMIC READING AND WRITING 1. What caused the introduction of Guinness Book of Records in 1955? A. The search for bestselling titles. B. The debate by several pub landlords. C. The marketing tool to promote Guinness. D. The arguments on the Europes fastest game bird.What was the main purpose of Guinness Book of Records in its earl y years? A. To document various life happenings B. To let the fact finders do the superlatives. C. To fulfil the curiosity within each human being. D. To travel near the world and find unbelievable facts. As used in paragraph 2, which is the best definition for principal? A. main B. belief C. senior D. sure How did the Guinness Book reality television show give people a chance to become famous? A. By accomplishing a task within a given time. B. By showing off their eating and interpret habits. C. By presenting their skills in front of the audience. D.By performing strange and usually pointless tasks. 2. 3. 4. 5. What is the primary benefit of making Guinness World Records available online? A. It is more environmental friendly. B. It helps to save the cost of printing the book. C. The book can be sold to a larger number of readers. D. More facts can be added without the travail of the paper. According to the author, the major difference between older editions of the Guinness Book of Records and the new Guinness World Records website involves A. a move from fact-finding to the recording of achievements B. a change in focus from educational to entertaining material C. departure from book sales being limited to local pubs and bars D. an end to the use of educational facts as a means to promote Guinness Why does Guinness World Records include more strange achievements? A. It adds entertainment values to the records. B. It allows more people to achieve the impossible. C. More people were capable of doing weird things. D. The education-oriented facts are very hard to find. 6. 7. ARW-SEM2-2013-LU2-READING-SKILLS 57 CENTRE FOR LANGUAGE STUDIES, UNIMAS PBI 1032 ACADEMIC READING AND WRITING 8. As used in paragraph 4, which is the best definition for infinite?A. certain B. excellent C. unlimited D. very little Which of the following statements is real? A. The reality television show for Guinness Book of Records was a failure. B. The title for the Guinness Book of Rec ords was derived from an Irish bird. C. Norris and Ross McWhirter were the first fact-finders for Guinness Book of Records. D. Changes to Guinness Book of Records are expected in the future since many people dislike reading silly records. What does the author imply by Guinness World Records website offers a peek into the future of fact-finding and record-documenting (paragraph 5)?A. Guinness World Records website will continue to be more entertainmentbased. B. Finding facts on various records to fit into the website would be harder in the future. C. The need for Guinness World Records website to be maintained for future generations. D. The Guinness World Records website may not be visited in the future since it has excluded educational facts. 9. 10. IMPORTANT NOTE In the final exam, the reading section will only include multiple-choice questions (MCQ) ARW-SEM2-2013-LU2-READING-SKILLS 58