Reading practice - news in levels

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vmbo t, mavo
• Leerjaar 3

'Which other word for
'spiders' is used in the text?

Residents in New South Wales, Australia had a horrifying shock when thousands of baby spiders quite literally rained down from the sky.

Creepy-crawlies invade the town; people found homes and gardens covered with the spiders and mounds of their silky threads.

The terrifying scenes would probably cause mass panic in most places, however the phenomenon commonly known as ‘Spider Rain’, ‘Angel Hair’ and ‘ballooning’, is not uncommon across parts of Australia.

 

Residents in New South Wales, Australia had a horrifying shock when thousands of baby spiders quite literally rained down from the sky.

Creepy-crawlies invade the town; people found homes and gardens covered with the spiders and mounds of their silky threads.

The terrifying scenes would probably cause mass panic in most places, however the phenomenon commonly known as ‘Spider Rain’, ‘Angel Hair’ and ‘ballooning’, is not uncommon across parts of Australia.

Ballooning is a form of spider transportation which is when some species of spiders climb to the highest heights that they possibly can, like on the tops of plants or trees. They then use their web as parachutes and leap off. The silk catches on the breeze and carries the spider. People are then left with the gossamer, which is the name for the silver sheets of silken webs left behind. Reportedly, this is going on around us all the time, but at a much smaller scale.

The spiders can often travel a pretty big distance and people have seen some come flying more than 2.9 kilometres above the ground. Spiders are thought to come raining down because of a preceding change in a weather conditions. If it rains a lot and the ground gets waterlogged, spiders move their way upwards to avoid drowning.

Choose the correct statement
and make sure you are able to tell
which words prove your answer.

 The terrifying scenes would probably cause mass panic in most places, however the phenomenon commonly known as ‘Spider Rain’, ‘Angel Hair’ and ‘ballooning’, is not uncommon across parts of Australia.

1. People in Australia are used to 'ballooning' .
2. People in Australia are NOT used to 'ballooning'.

Ballooning is when lots of spiders
climb to the tops of trees
at the same time.
Make sure you are able to tell me
where in the text you have found
your answer.

Ballooning is a form of spider transportation which is when some species of spiders climb to the highest heights that they possibly can, like on the tops of plants or trees. They then use their web as parachutes and leap off. The silk catches on the breeze and carries the spider. People are then left with the gossamer, which is the name for the silver sheets of silken webs left behind. Reportedly, this is going on around us all the time, but at a much smaller scale.

1. true
2. false

Leg in het Nederlands uit
wanneer de kans groot is
dat er spinnen uit de lucht komen vallen.

The spiders can often travel a pretty big distance and people have seen some come flying more than 2.9 kilometres above the ground. Spiders are thought to come raining down because of a preceding change in a weather conditions. If it rains a lot and the ground gets waterlogged, spiders move their way upwards to avoid drowning.

Niagara Falls Freeze 

As temperatures plunged across North America in February, the Niagara Falls partially froze on both sides of the US-Canada border.

Thick ice formations coated the iconic waterfall; however, the amount of ice didn´t stop the water from flowing completely. The volume and force of the water is too great to ever freeze solid, even at extremely low temperatures. The sheets of ice make it appear as though the falls have stopped; however, the water continues to flow underneath.

The Niagara Falls have only stopped flowing once in history due to ice from Lake Eerie that clogged the mouth of the river. In the 1960s, steel ice booms were installed upriver to prevent that from happening again.

1. All water from the waterfall has frozen
2. It looks as if all water has frozen, but below the ice it hasn't.

Schrijf 3 prijzen op die de winnaar
mee naar huis mocht nemen.
(Antwoord in het Nederlands)

Many people like beauty pageants. In Lithuania, there is a special beauty pageant where people rate the beauty of goats.

Some goats arrived in beautiful hats or decorated by flowers. Over 500 visitors came to the event to watch. The judges chose as the winner a goat which was at the event for its 6th time. People gave it cakes, jars of honey, books and coupons for a haircut.

Welk woord kun je invullen
bij __1__?

Nigeria School Attack 

A group of men with guns attacked a school in northern Nigeria. The men searched the buildings, chose at least 317 girls, and herded them into a forest.

Officials did not comment on the attack, ___1___it was the fourth attack on a school since 2015, when the new president was elected. In December 2020, attackers took 344 students which they later released. Another attack happened in central Niger last week, when attackers took 42 people.

1. and
2. so
3. but
4. when

Waarom heeft Ahmed,
naast zijn baan als chauffeur,
ook nog zijn eigen koffie winkel
geopend?
(antwoord in het Nederlands)

A Jordanian, Fadi Ahmed, has turned his Volkswagen Beetle into a coffee shop.

Ahmed works as a driver in a private company, and he spotted a similar car years ago. He decided to buy his car and open his project in 2019 to help him save his expenses. He serves roadside hot drinks and herbs every morning as an additional source of income that helps him meet the requirements of life.

Hoe vaak is de koffie winkel open?

Sometimes customers wait for Ahmed if he is only a few minutes late, while some people are impatient when they have to wait for their drinks to get ready. The green car attracts drivers´ attention, and they are curious to see how their coffee is prepared. Surprisingly, the process is very clean and the coffee is delicious, too. Ahmad used to open his coffee shop only in the month of Ramadan; however, with the coronavirus outbreak, he started to serve coffee from it daily.

1. in de middag
2. in de ochtend
3. tijdens de Ramadan
4. dagelijks

Orange Snow 

This is what the Swiss Alps looked like on February 6. Skies turned a spectacular shade of orange, not only in Switzerland, but across parts of southwestern Europe.

Sahara dust blanketed parts of southern and central Europe, and it caused a sharp rise in air pollution across the region.

It´s a common yearly phenomenon as sands and dust from the Sahara desert in Africa are swept northwards. However, this year is particularly impressive due to stronger winds and the volume of sand in the air. Skiers at a resort in Anzere, Switzerland, enjoyed the orange snow and the brightly colored skies last weekend. In Lyon, France, people were also mesmerized by the views of the Sahara sand colors taking over the city.

The concentration of Sahara dust didn´t reach levels that scientists consider harmful because the particles are too big to enter the lungs and cause breathing difficulties.

1. Sahara dust is bad for your health.
2. Sahara dust isn't bad for your health.

Noem tenminste 3
verwondingen die Joe
opliep na een
auto ongeluk.
(antwoord in het
Nederlands)

Man Has a New Face   

A 22-year-old man from New Jersey, US, has undergone the world´s first face and double hand transplant.

In 2018, Joe DiMeo was severely burned in a horrific car crash, suffering burns on over 80% of his body. He had extensive injuries, including amputated fingertips, facial scarring, and no lips and eyelids. He was in a coma for three and a half months, and then he spent a month waking up and trying to exercise a little. 

Waarom was deze operatie zo uniek?

The reconstructive plastic surgery was carried out by a team of 140 staff at a hospital in New York, and it took 23 hours. It included transplanting both hands and the full face of a single donor simultaneously and it marked the first successful combination transplant case of its kind. After the surgery, DiMeo said that there were always a thousand ways to be sad about something, but there were always a million ways to be happy.

1. Er werd voor het eerst een gezicht getransplanteerd van 1 donor.
2. Er werden voor het eerst handen getransplanteerd.
3. Er waren een recordaantal artsen en verpleegkundigen nodig voor de operatie.
4. Er werd voor het eerst gelijktijdig 2 soorten transplantaties uitgevoerd.

The dog's owner
is still in hospital.

Boncuk, a devoted pet, spent days waiting outside a hospital in Trabzon, Turkey, where her sick owner, Cemal Senturk, was being treated.

According to local media, the dog followed the ambulance that transported Senturk to hospital and she made multiple visits to the front door. Senturk´s daughter said that the dog had been waiting at the hospital for several days, and when she took Boncuk home, the dog kept going back. After six days, Boncuk and her owner were reunited when he was discharged from hospital.

 brought joy, and made people happy.

1. True
2. False

Which other word for
'earthquake', is used
in the text?

Croatia suffered its strongest earthquake since 1880, and it happened for the second time in 2020.

The earthquake brought down buildings near its epicenter in the town of Petrinja, and reportedly, at least five people were killed. Most buildings in Petrinja were damaged so badly that they are now unusable. Authorities evacuated the hospital in the nearby city of Sisak, and the tremor also damaged structures in Zagreb where people left their homes to wait out any potential aftershocks.

Welk woord
kun je
invullen bij
__1__?

At a zoo in northern Japan, authorities declared a twenty-four-year-old male chimp named Chacha missing after locals reported the primate roaming around their neighbourhood.

The animal was scaling power lines when dozens of workers and animal experts tried to coax the animal down using a cherry picker. That did not work, so veterinarian shot Chacha with a tranquilliser gun.

When the drug kicked in, the chimp fell down, and as he fell, he hit a lamp on the pole, which threw him off. He did not land in the nets and sheets that humans were holding below. __1__the seemingly painful fall, people reported that Chacha later made a full recovery.

1. Because of
2. Despite
3. Besides
4. To illustrate