REPÚBLICA BOLIVARIANA DE VENEZUELA
UNIVERSIDAD YACAMBU
CONTADURIA PÚBLICA
Autor: Heydi Cordero
Work 8
Reading
Comprehension
Stonehenge is a
Neolithic and Bronze Age megalithic monument located near Amesbury in the
English
It is composed of earthworks surrounding a circular setting of large standing
stones and is one of the most famous prehistoric sites in the world.
Archaeologists think that the standing stones were erected between 2500 BC and
2000 BC although the surrounding circular earth bank and ditch, which
constitute the earliest phase of the monument, have been dated to about 3100
BC.
The site and its surroundings were added to the UNESCO's list of World Heritage
Sites in
Questions
Now,
answer the questions about the text.
"Mummy! Mummy!" shouted little Murna
racing from the front door through to the kitchen. "There's a parcel. The
postman's brought a parcel!"
Her
mother, Savni, looked at her in surprise. She had no
idea who could have sent them a parcel. Maybe it was a mistake. She hurried to
the door to find out. Sure enough, the postman was there, holding a parcel
about the size of a small brick.
"From
It
was true. In the top right-hand corner of the brown paper parcel were three
strange-looking stamps, showing a man's head. The package was addressed to Savni, in big, clear black letters.
"Well, I suppose it must be from Great-Aunt Pasni,"
said Savni to herself, as the postman went on his way
down the street, whistling. "Although it must be twenty years since we
heard anything from her. I thought she would have been dead by now."
Savni's husband Jornas and her
son Arinas were just coming in from the garden, where
Murna had run to tell them about the parcel.
"Well, open it then!" said Arinas
impatiently. "Let's see what's inside!"
Setting the parcel down in the middle of the table, Savni
carefully began to tear open the paper. Inside, there was a large silver
container with a hinged lid, which was taped shut. There was also a letter.
"What is it? What is it?" demanded Murna
impatiently. "Is it a present?"
"I have no idea," said Savni in confusion.
"I think it must be from Great-Aunt Pasni. She
went to
"Well, open the pot, anyway," said Jornas.
"Let's see what's inside."
Cautiously, Savni pulled the tape from the neck of
the silver pot, and opened the lid. Four heads touched over the top of the
container, as their owners stared down inside.
"Strange," said Arinas. "All I see is
powder." The pot was about one-third full of a kind of light-grey powder.
"What is it?" asked Murna, mystified.
"We don't know, darling," said Savni, stroking
her daughter's hair. "What do you think?" Murna
stared again into the pot.
"I think its coffee," she announced, finally. "American
coffee."
"It's the wrong colour
for coffee, darling," said Jornas thoughtfully.
"But maybe she's on the right track. It must be some kind of food." Murna, by now, had her nose right down into the pot.
Suddenly, she lifted her head and sneezed loudly.
"Id god up by doze," she explained.
"That's it!" said Arinas. "It must be
pepper! Let me try some." Dipping a finger into the powder, he licked it.
"Yes," he said, "it's pepper all right. Mild,
but quite tasty. It's American pepper."
"All right," said Savni, "we'll try it
on the stew tonight. We'll
have American-style stew!"
That
evening, the whole family agreed that the American pepper had added a special
extra taste to their usual evening stew. They were delighted with it. By the
end of the week, there was only a teaspoonful of the grey powder left in the
silver container. Then Savni called a halt.
"We're saving the last bit for Sunday. Dr. Haret
is coming to dinner, and we'll let him have some as a special treat. Then it
will be finished."
The
following Sunday, the whole family put on their best clothes, ready for dinner
with Dr. Haret. He was the local doctor, and he had
become a friend of the family many years before, when he had saved Arinas's life after an accident. Once every couple of
months, Savni invited the doctor for dinner, and they
all looked forward to his entertaining stories of his youth at the university
in the capital.
During dinner, Savni explained to the doctor about
the mysterious American pepper, the last of which she had put in the stew they
were eating, and the letter they could not read.
"Well, give it to me, give it to me!" said the doctor briskly.
"I speak English! I can translate it for you."
Savni brought the letter, and the family waited,
fascinated, as the doctor began to translate.
"Dear Savni: you don't know me, but I am the son
of your old Great-Aunt Pasni. She never talked much
to us about the old country, but in her final illness earlier this year, she
told us that after her death, she wanted her ashes to be sent back home to you,
so that you could scatter them on the hills of the country where she was born.
My mother died two weeks ago, and her funeral and cremation took place last
week. I am sending her ashes to you in a silver casket. Please do as she asked,
and spread them over the ground near where she was born. Your
cousin, George Leary."
(MDH 1995 -- from a common urban
legend)
Choose
the answer you think is correct.
As
Andrea turned off the motorway onto the road to Brockbourne,
the small village in which she lived, it was four o'clock in the afternoon, but
already the sun was falling behind the hills. At this time in December, it
would be completely dark by five o'clock. Andrea shivered. The interior of the
car was not cold, but the trees bending in the harsh wind and the patches of
yesterday's snow still heaped in the fields made her feel chilly inside. It was
another ten miles to the cottage where she lived with her husband Michael, and
the dim light and wintry weather made her feel a little lonely. She would have
liked to listen to the radio, but it had been stolen from her car when it was
parked outside her office in
She
was just coming out of the little
When
she did get in, Andrea could see that she was not, in fact, so little. Broad
and fat, the old lady had some difficulty climbing in through the car door,
with her big bag, and when she had got in, she more than filled the seat next
to Andrea. She wore a long, shabby old dress, and she had a yellow hat pulled
down low over her eyes. Panting noisily from her effort, she pushed her big
brown canvas shopping bag down onto the floor under her feet, and said in a
voice which was almost a whisper, "Thank you dearie
-- I'm just going to Brrockbourne."
"Do
you live there?" asked Andrea, thinking that she had never seen the old
lady in the village in the four years she had lived there herself.
"No,
dearie," answered the passenger, in her soft
voice, "I'm just going to visit a friend. He was supposed to meet me back
there at Mickley, but his car won't start, so I
decided to hitchhike -- there isn't a bus until seven, and I didn't want to
wait. I knew some kind soul would give me a lift."
Something
in the way the lady spoke, and the way she never turned her head, but stared
continuously into the darkness ahead from under her old yellow hat, made Andrea
uneasy about this strange hitchhiker. She didn't know why, but she felt
instinctively that there was something wrong, something odd, something....dangerous.
But how could an old lady be dangerous? it was absurd.
Careful
not to turn her head, Andrea looked sideways at her passenger. She studied the
hat, the dirty collar of the dress, the shapeless body, the
arms with their thick black hairs....
Thick black hairs?
Hairy arms? Andrea's blood froze.
This
wasn't a woman. It was a man.
At
first, she didn't know what to do. Then suddenly, an idea came into her racing,
terrified brain. Swinging the wheel suddenly, she threw the car into a skid,
and brought it to a halt.
"My
God!" she shouted, "A child! Did you see the child? I think I hit
her!"
The
"old lady" was clearly shaken by the sudden skid. "I didn't see
anything dearie," she said. "I don't think
you hit anything."
"I'm
sure it was a child!" insisted Andrea. "Could you just get out and
have a look? Just see if there's anything on the road?" She held her
breath. Would her plan work?
It
did. The passenger slowly opened the car door, leaving her bag inside, and
climbed out to investigate. As soon as she was out of the vehicle, Andrea
gunned the engine and accelerated madly away. The car door swung shut as she
rounded a bend, and soon she had put a good three miles between herself and the
awful hitchhiker.
It was
only then that she thought about the bag lying on the floor in front of her.
Maybe the bag would provide some information about the real identity about the
old woman who was not an old woman. Pulling into the side of the road, Andrea
lifted the heavy bag onto her lap and opened it curiously.
It
contained only one item -- a small hand axe, with a razor-sharp blade. The axe, and the inside of
the bag, were covered with the dark red stains of dried blood.
Andrea
began to scream.
(MDH 1994 -- From a common urban
legend)
Choose
on the answer you think is correct.