Reading comprehension

Book 1

Evaluation Unit 1
LISTENING comprehension
You are going to listen to a folk tale about Brer Monkey. It is called ‘How Trouble Made the Monkey Eat Pepper’.

1

As you listen, answer the questions: a Where does the story take place? b What did Ma Minnie use to make? c What did Ma Minnie drop? d Who ate the molasses when Ma Minnie had left? e What did Monkey really want when he askedfor ‘trouble’ in the shop? f What did the shopkeeper sell Monkey? g What was inside it? h How did Monkey escape? i j Why did Monkey eat the fruit from the tree? What actually was the fruit? 5 marks (half mark for each correct answer)

Now listen a second time and check your answers.

2

Use your answers to the questions to write a summary of the story. 5 marks

Reading Comprehension
1Read the following passage from Barry Hines’s novel.

A Kestrel For A Knave
The wood was a narrow black band beyond the fields, growing taller and taller as Billy approached, until it formed a curtain stretched out before him, and the top of the curtain appeared to touch the stars directly above. He climbed on to the stile and looked into the trees. It was dark on both sides of the path, butabove the path the foliage was thinner, and the light from the moon penetrated and lit the way. Billy stepped down off the stile and entered the woods. The trunks and branches lining the path formed pillars and lintels, terraced doorways leading into dark interiors. He hurried by them, glancing in, right and left. A scuffle to his left. He side-stepped to the right and began to run, the pad of hisfeet and the rasp of his breath filtering far into the trees. WO-HU-WO-HOOO. WO-HU-WO-HOOO. He stopped and listened, trying to control his breathing. WO-HU-WO-HOOO. Somewhere

© Heinemann Educational Publishers 2000

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evaluation Unit 1

ahead, the long falter radiating back through the trees. Billy linked his fingers, placed his thumbs together and blew into the split between them.The only sound he produced was that of rushing air. He licked his lips and tried again, producing a wheeze, which he swiftly worked up into a single hoot and developed into a strident imitation of the tawny owl’s call. He listened. There was no response, so he repeated it, this time working for the softer, more wavering sound, by stuttering his breath into the sound chamber. And out it came, asclear and as clean as a blowing of bubbles. His call was immediately answered. Billy grinned and answered back. He started to walk again, and maintained contact with the owl for the rest of the distance through the wood. The farmhouse was in darkness. Billy carefully climbed over the wall into the orchard and ran crouching across to the ruins. He stood back from the wall and looked up at it. The moonilluminated the face of the wall, picking out the jut of the individual stones, and shading in the cracks and hollows between them. Billy selected his route, found a foothold, a handhold and began to climb. If any stones moved he felt again, remaining still until he was satisfied. Slowly. Hand. Foot. Hand. Foot. Never stretching, never jerking. Sometimes grabbing to by-pass gaps in the stonework,sometimes back-tracking several moves to explore a new line, but steadily meandering upwards he made for the highest window. As he climbed, his feet and hands dislodged a trickle of plaster and stone dust, and birds brushed his knuckles as they flashed out of their nest holes. Occasionally he dislodged a small stone or a lump of plaster, and when he felt this happen he paused during the time ofits fall, and for a time after it had landed. But there were no alarms, and he reached the window and hooked his left arm over the stone sill. He slapped the stone. Nothing happened so he climbed across to the next hole. He peered in, but there was nothing to see, so he stretched bellyflop along the sill and felt into the hole, wriggling further along as his arm went further in. He felt around,...