Activity 1: (Vocabulary) http://www.englishvocabularyexercises.com/eve-exercises/EngVocEx_adjectives_1_1.htm
Activity 2: Poetry
“Dives” is a fairly sad and frank poem, which focuses on the troubles of Caribbean people. The poem describes rich tourists throwing coins for little boys, watching with delight as they dive down to retrieve them.
It is very sad, as what the boys are doing is very dangerous, but the tourists saw it only as a source of entertainment for themselves. The entire poem is a commentary on the views of society on the poor people of the Caribbean, which is almost tragic.
Dives
Before they built the deep water harbour
to the white liners, great ocean-going floats,
to dive for coins. Women with bracelets,
men with expensive tickers on their wrists,
watched us through bland sun glasses
so that their blue stares never blinked.
They tossed us pennies. The spinning flat metallic bird would hit the water with a little
flap and wing zig-zagging down the water's track.
Our underwater eyes would watch it like a cat
as it dark bottomed soundwards like a pendulum
winging from side to side, now black
now bright, now black, now bright,
catching the dying daylight down
the coal dark sides of the ship
every shadow we saw was a possible shark
but we followed that flat dark light
even if the propellers would suddenly turn
burning the water to murderous cold
we would never come nearer to gold.
1. How does the poet emphasize the difference between the tourists and the boys?
2. What dangers do the boys face?
3. Suggest a reason why the poet uses 'cat' in line 12.
4. Alliteration refers to a series of words beginning with the same letter. Give an example of alliteration used in the poem.
5. What is the general tone of the poem?
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AIDS
AIDS appeared almost out of nowhere, in 1980 in the USA. In June 1981, the USA. In June 1981, the CDC stated, "In the period October 1980 to May 1981, 5 young men, all active homosexuals, were treated for confirmed pneumonia at three different hospitals in California. Two of them died."
A month later, the New York Times reported that doctors in New York and California had diagnosed among homosexual men, 41 cases of a rare and rapidly fatal form of cancer. Eight of the victims had died less than 24 months after their diagnosis. The report included this warning: "The cause of the outbreak is unknown and there is as yet no evidence of contagion. But the doctors are alerting other physicians who treat large numbers of homosexual men to the problem in an attempt to help identify more cases and to reduce the delay in offering chemotherapy treatment."
The reaction to the new disease was slow and hesitant because the authorities did not realise the full potential of AIDS. By the end of 1988, 90,000 Americans had contracted AIDS and nearly 50,000 had died. It became clear that this was an epidemic, with no cure.
By the mid 1990's more than 50, 000 Americans had AIDS and over half had died. By the end of the century, 40,000 cases were diagnosed each year.
Outside of the USA, it is worse. It is known that over 22 million people have died of AIDS throughout the world. The World Health Organisation has said that 25 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are infected with HIV/AIDS. This is 30% of the adult population in some countries. 12 million African children have been orphaned by AIDS. Nearly 4 million Africans were infected in 2000. Worldwide, more than 40 million people are infected with AIDS and it is expected that the worst is yet to come.
In some African villages, a generation of adults has almost been eliminated, leaving behind large numbers of infected orphans to be cared for. Experts say that what has happened in Africa (in 20 years) is beginning in Asia. The epidemic in most Asian countries is amongst drug users. Infection rates soared from 1% to 40% among drug communities in 1 year. In China, it is reported that there was a major scandal when contaminated blood was used in transfusions and infected thousands of innocent victims.
Drug companies have put a lot of effort in attempting to find a cure or vaccine but have been unsuccessful. At the moment, the best we have is an expensive cocktail of drugs which can prolong life. Experts fear that by 2010 there will be 25 million African orphans and by the next 20 years, 70 million people will be killed by AIDS.
1. According to the information
a. AIDS precedes HIV
b. HIV precedes AIDS
c. HIV follows AIDS
d. AIDS causes HIV
2. We learn that:
a. the human immune system has developed an immunity to HIV but not yet to AIDS
b. HIV is particularly dangerous to people whose immune system has been destroyed by AIDS
c. the human immune system has not yet developed a foolproof defence against AIDS
d. HIV is more dangerous than AIDS because people die sooner with HIV than with AIDS
3. Pneumonia is mentioned as
a. a cause of HIV
b. an opportunistic infection
c. a consequence of AIDS
d. a source of AIDS
4. One reason why the reaction to the new disease was not swift was that
a. nobody yet realised how dangerous AIDS was
b. it was very expensive to prepare new drugs to fight AIDS
c. it affected only two regions in the USA
d. officials probably did not believe the newspaper reports
5. If we judge by the second to last paragraph, as far as AIDS is concerned, the outlook for parts of Asia is probably
a. far from good
b. rapidly improving
c. better than expected
d. impossible to predict
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