Conjunction Exercise - The Simple Steps to Happiness

Happiness - a very simple word - a profound meaning - Everyday - people try - achieve happiness -  their own ways -They are willing - work hard - achieve it - What they do not realise is - there are many alternative - simpler ways to get happiness.

The simplest step - happiness is – loved- It is more than enough - feel happy just - the love - your family members - they are the ones - want the best for you- They are by your side - both your happy - sad times. - the saying goes, 'shared joy is a double joy; and shared sorrow is half a sorrow' - I believe - having love - our family members is equivalent - having happiness.

- socialising - one another is also one of the ways - achieve happiness- I believe - to live happily in a community- people should make friends- According to an Oxford dictionary, friends are people - have the same interests - opinions as ourselves-  will help - support us- That is indeed true- Friends are important - they are the complement - our lives- We can have fun - socialise - our friends- We get to learn - respect - tolerate one another as well- You will feel like the luckiest person alive - you have intimate friends - really understand you.

- there are many ways to reach happiness - The question is, why do we usually choose the harder steps - of the simpler ones- Some people are willing - work hard - achieve happiness - acquiring wealth-Well, in my opinion, we may be able - buy luxurious items - lead a life of luxury - wealth - we can never buy happiness – it- I pray for a growing realisation of this fact-Real happiness is - we are being loved, have great buddies - need not make appointments - specialists.

City apartments or jungle huts? By their microbes you shall know them

By Associated Press, adapted by Newsela staff

02.24.16

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Whether it is a jungle hut or a high-rise apartment, your home is covered in bacteria. That is not always a bad thing. However, new research from the Amazon rain forest suggests city dwellers might want to open a window.

Learning About Microbes

Scientists traveled through South America, from remote villages in Peru to a large Brazilian city, to track one of the unseen effects of urbanization. Over time, more and more people have moved to urban areas like cities. Many things change as new buildings arise and more people live in a small area of land. This study focused on how urbanization affects the diversity of bacteria inside people's homes.

The study is a small first step in a larger quest to understand how different environmental bugs help shape what's called our microbiome. Microbiomes are the collections of bacteria and other tiny microbes that live inside our bodies. These trillions of bacteria share our bodies and play a critical role in our health.

"Very little is known about the microbes of the built environment," according to microbiologist Maria Gloria Dominguez-Bello. She is a professor at New York University, and led the study in South America.

The Walls Have Germs

Her team found that as people in the Amazon rain forest come to live in larger villages and cities the kinds of bacteria in their homes change. They lose the bugs mostly found in nature and pick up those that typically live on people.

In fact, in city dwellings, the researchers could tell just by the bacteria on the walls that "this is a kitchen or this is a bathroom or this is a living room. That's amazing," Dominguez-Bello said.

As she puts it, "the walls talk."

Everyone carries a customized set of bacteria on the skin, in the nose and in the gut. This bacteria starts accumulating at birth and helps with such things as digestion and the immune system, which fights off colds and disease. What influences the balance of good bugs and bad varies depending on such things as your diet, how you were born, and what antibiotic medicines you take. Environmental exposures play a role, too.

One Theory Of Allergies

For example, one theory suggests asthma and allergies are on the rise in Western populations because kids get less contact with bugs that were once common in their surroundings. This theory may be one reason why children who grow up on farms or around animals tend to have fewer of those immune-related illnesses.

Increasingly, scientists also are investigating where we spend a lot of time, especially our homes. To track the effects of urbanization, Dominguez-Bello's team studied the bacterial communities of 10 houses and their inhabitants from four different locations. Three of these were in Peru: a village of hunter-gatherers, a slightly more modern rural village and the medium-sized city of Iquitos. The fourth location was Manaus, a larger city in Brazil.

These locations gave the scientists the opportunity to compare similar people living in four different states of urbanization. Peru and Brazil are neighboring countries in South America. Each includes large sections of the Amazon rain forest. The people living in the two small villages are relatively similar to those living in Iquitos (population about 150,000) and Manaus (population about 2,000,000).

Bad Germs: Gone With The Wind?

Housing styles help tell the story, said study co-author Humberto Cavallin, an architect at the University of Puerto Rico. Large families shared open-air jungle huts with no outside walls. Homes in the rural villages had indoor walls but they did not reach the roof. City homes were larger with standard rooms and smaller families.

Despite having fewer people living in them, it was the city dwellings that had the most human bacteria living on their walls and floors, the researchers reported. In Manaus, bacteria normally found in the mouth and in the gut were the most important in telling rooms apart. The more crowded jungle and village homes were filled with bacteria commonly more found in soil and water than with human microbes.

The walls of city homes were acting as traps and retaining the bacteria that people shed. This was especially true when compared with the village homes that allowed air to circulate more freely, the team reported. Dominguez-Bello was so struck by the findings that she insisted the windows in her New York office be unsealed so she could open them.

A Balancing Act

She next will compare the microbiomes of the residents with their homes. However, she did acknowledge that there is a balancing act to this. While jungle and village homes may allow for more air to move within them, these have their own set of problems. For example, many of these homes do not have screens to keep out disease-carrying mosquitoes.

Still, the findings reflect research in U.S. homes and hospitals about the role of ventilation, said Jack Gilbert of the University of Chicago. He is a microbiologist who was not involved in the study. His own housing study was able to match which family lived where by the bacteria they shed inside.

He said that when it comes to studying microbiomes and bacteria, "our modern homes are set up perfectly."

Questions:

1. How did Maria Gloria Dominguez-Bello make her discovery about bacteria?

2. According to the study, what is the connection between urbanization and bacteria?

3. Why did village homes have less human bacteria than city homes?

4. Microbiomes are the collections of bacteria and other tiny microbes that live inside our bodies. These trillions of bacteria share our bodies and play a critical role in our health.

Which word would BEST replace "critical" in this sentence without changing its meaning?

A. minor

B. important

C. negative

D. mysterious

5. The walls of city homes were acting as traps and retaining the bacteria that people shed.

What is the BEST definition of "retaining" as used above?

A. to clean something

B. to harm something

C. to transform something

D. to hold on to something

6. Based on your understanding, define the word "antibiotic".

What Has Happened to Lulu? Elements - Form 5 literature (Poem) - Part 1

Setting

Place

• Probably in England as the word "money-box" is a typical British word.
• Lulu's room
• The fireplace

Time

• In the past

Themes

1. The end of childhood and the loss of innocence

• Lulu is probably a young teenager. 
• She ran away based on the note that her mother crumpled.
• She took her savings "money-box" to start a new life with a man who drove her off in a "engine roar".
• She left her childhood behind.

2. Parent-child relationship

• The mother and Lulu relationship could have been a tense and strained one.
• Lulu is a rebellious teenager.
• She dislikes her mother's restrictions on her freedom and emerging interest in the opposite sex.
• She keeps secrets from her mother.
• The mother and narrator relationship is less dramatic.
• The narrator is obedient and respectful to the mother.
• The narrator loves the mother very much and observe her pain and distress.

3. Grief and love

• The mother is grieving over the loss of her child, Lulu.
• The mother clearly loves Lulu.
• The narrator loves the sister as she called her by pet name "Lu".
• The narrator is worried about the sudden disappearance of the elder sister.

What Has Happened to Lulu? Meaning - Form 5 literature (Poem)

by Charles Causley

What is the Poem about?

• It is a story of a mother grieving because her elder daughter, Lulu has run away.
• The child narrator questions her mother about the incident in a series of rhetorical questions.
• The mother is distraught and ends up tells her child a series of lies.

The Poem

What has happened to Lulu, mother? 
What has happened to Lu? 
There's nothing in her bed but an old rag-doll 
And by its side a shoe. 

Why is her window wide, mother, 
The curtain flapping free, 
And only a circle on the dusty shelf 
Where her money-box used to be? 

Why do you turn your head, mother, 
And why do tear drops fall? 
And why do you crumple that note on the fire 
And say it is nothing at all? 

I woke to voices late last night, 
I heard an engine roar. 
Why do you tell me the things I heard 
Were a dream and nothing more? 

I heard somebody cry, mother, 
In anger or in pain, 
But now I ask you why, mother, 
You say it was a gust of rain. 

Why do you wander about as though 
You don't know what to do? 
What has happened to Lulu, mother? 
What has happened to Lu?

Meaning of Lines

Stanza 1

• The persona is questioning her mother about the mysterious and sudden disappearance of Lulu. An old rag doll and a shoe was left behind.

Stanza 2

• The persona saw that the windows are wide opened and the curtains are "flapping free" in the wind. The persona also notice her money-box on the dusty shelf is gone.

Stanza 3

• The persona asks the mother why she is hiding her tears. The mother crumples up a note (most probably from Lulu) and throws it into the fire. Mother then tells her child that it is nothing at all. The persona does not believe her.

Stanza 4

• The persona tells that she was awakened by "voices late last night" and heard the sounds of an "engine roar", probably a car starting up and being driven away. The mother lies that the child was only dreaming.

Stanza 5

• The persona insists that she had heard someone cry "in anger or in pain". The mother says it was just "a gust of rain".

Stanza 6

• Puzzled about the mother's distraught behavior, the narrator wants to know why the mother is pacing about, uncertain what to do. The use of "Lu" is an affectionate shortened form of "Lulu".

PRO/CON: The world's getting warmer, can nuclear power help us?

By Tribune News Service, adapted by Newsela staff
02.05.16

PRO: Using more nuclear energy will stop greenhouse gases

Nuclear power plants produce energy by splitting apart the nucleus, or center, of atoms. When the nucleus is split, heat is released. That newly released energy is then used to produce electricity. In turn, that electricity is sent through a grid to light our homes and power our computers. 

Nuclear power is only one of many ways of producing electricity. However, it is superior to any other method for one important reason. It is the best way to produce carbon-free electric power. 

Carbon is in carbon dioxide and other gases. It is released or emitted when fuels like coal, gas or oil are burned. People burn these fuels to power cars and all sorts of machinery. 

Carbon-containing gases are the main cause of the so-called greenhouse effect. Once they are released through the burning of fuels, they remain in the atmosphere and trap heat, just as heat is trapped in a greenhouse. Over time, this has caused average global temperatures to rise. 

A Valuable Tool

The global increase in average temperature is known as climate change or global warming. It is putting the planet at risk. Polar ice caps are starting to melt, thereby causing ocean levels to rise. Increasingly, coastlines and island nations are being submerged. In other parts of the world, droughts are becoming common as lakes and rivers dry up.

The world is starting to come together to try to limit climate change. Clearly, a carbon-free source of energy like nuclear power is a valuable tool in that effort.

Nuclear power now accounts for more than 60 percent of the United States' zero-carbon electricity. It is playing an essential part in the battle to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Wind power and solar power can also produce energy without releasing carbon. However, they are not constant. To work, the sun has to be out, or the wind has to be blowing.

Nuclear power plants run 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They are the only constant source of power that does not emit greenhouse gases.

An Excellent Safety Record

Many claim nuclear power is dangerous. Nuclear power plants produce radiation, which can be a dangerous form of energy. Even a small amount can cause severe damage to living things. Nuclear plants are built to keep radiation from leaking out, but many people worry such leaking will happen anyway.

Actually, there is no reason for concern. The nuclear power industry has an excellent safety record. 

The first commercial nuclear reactor began producing electricity more than 50 years ago. In all that time, there has not been a single death or injury from a radiation-related nuclear power plant accident in the United States. 

Many other countries also successfully rely on nuclear power. In France, nuclear power supplies 75 percent of the electricity, with enough to spare to provide almost a quarter of the electricity in Europe. 

The picture is very different in China, the world’s biggest carbon polluter. There, nuclear energy provides only 2 percent of the power. Coal remains China’s main energy source, and its use is increasing not only in China but throughout Asia.

Last month, representatives of most of the world's nations met in Paris, France, to discuss the climate crisis. The agreement they signed was far-reaching. It set a goal of bringing carbon emissions down to zero by the second half of this century.

Meeting that goal might seem impossible. However, France and Sweden show that countries can change their energy use very quickly. Both have been able to greatly increase their use of carbon-fee nuclear power in a relatively short time.

Reducing The Need For Oil

If the world built nuclear reactors at the same rate as France and Sweden have, the effect would be enormous. In 25 to 34 years, all the electricity now produced though burning coal and natural gas could be produced by nuclear power.

During this period, electric vehicles powered by nuclear-generated electricity could dramatically reduce the need for oil. These changes would greatly lower global carbon emissions and would help prevent dangerous climate change.

Meeting the new climate control goals is a daunting challenge. The world’s population is expected to increase to more than 9 billion by 2040. As a result, global demand for electricity will nearly double.

Unless the use of nuclear power is greatly increased, it will be impossible to both meet future energy demand and prevent dangerous climate change. Nuclear power is the only way to achieve both those goals at the same time.

CON: Nuclear power is only part of the answer, we need more solar and wind energy

The 2015 Paris climate agreement sets a remarkable goal. It calls on all countries to greatly reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

Most of these emissions come from the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas. The message could not be clearer: We need to change the way we generate and use energy, and do so quickly.

The United States set itself a modest goal. It has pledged to cut emissions by around a quarter by 2025. The country has already taken some steps to meet that goal, but much more is needed.

Perhaps the most realistic approach is to increase the use of both nuclear power and renewable energy. Renewable energy sources, also called renewables, include such things as wind power and solar power.

A Better Bet

China has been using this approach. It plans to double its nuclear power capacity, and has 24 new plants now under construction. However, it is also expanding its use of wind and solar power.

Should the United States do the same? Yes, but only in part. Currently, our 99 nuclear reactors only account for about 8 percent of the electricity the U.S. consumes. Most of the energy we use, about 81 percent, comes from fossil fuels.

Nuclear power will have an important part to play, but it is unlikely to replace much fossil fuel use. It is still too expensive and too risky.

A better bet is to expand the use of renewables, while also working to make our energy use less wasteful.

Globally, nuclear electricity production has been leveling off while wind and solar power are soaring. There are good reasons for this.

One is cost. The new nuclear plants now being built in the U.S. are expected to cost $8 billion to $9 billion each, possibly more. It is also very expensive to safely shut down plants, which eventually becomes necessary when they are too old.

These very high costs make it difficult for the private utilities that provide our electricity to increase nuclear power generation. They see more promise and lower costs in natural gas-powered plants or in turning to renewables.

Nuclear Waste, And A Disaster

The problem of radioactive waste is another big reason to avoid an increase in nuclear power. There is currently no acceptable way to dispose of the highly radioactive waste nuclear plants create. 

There is also always the chance of the kind of disaster that occurred in Fukushima, Japan. In 2011, an earthquake there caused radiation-contaminated water to leak out of a nuclear plant, poisoning the surrounding area. The U.S. public remains understandably concerned that such a disaster could happen here.

A better way is for the country to greatly increase its use of renewables. At the same time, we should try to use energy in a way that is less wasteful. A non-wasteful use of energy is known as energy efficiency.

There are many ways to cut down on wasteful energy loss. Among them are improved building design, and a greater use of trains and buses in place of cars. We should modernize our electrical grid, and design better lighting, heating and cooling systems.

The United States also should put more money into research on promising new types of energy.

The federal government has long favored nuclear power and fossil fuels. For the past 10 years, renewables and energy efficiency have begun to receive significant support. We should keep moving in that direction, and quickly.

Questions:

1. What are the advantages of using nuclear plant?

2. What are the disadvantages of using nuclear plant?

3. Which countries are currently using nuclear plant as their main power supply?

4. Define "renewables" and give a few examples.

5. In your opinion, should our country use nuclear power and why?

When a friend yawns, women feel urge to yawn too, study says

By Los Angeles Times, Adapted by Newsela staff

02.11.16

If a person yawns, some people will yawn back. Women do this more often than men. Scientists from Italy made this claim recently in a science magazine. They did tests to find out if people can catch the urge to yawn.  

A yawn is involuntary. A person does not mean to do it. It happens by opening the mouth, breathing in, expanding a tube that leads to the eardrums, and then exhaling. The whole event takes about six seconds. 

Catching yawns is an example of a social contagion. A social contagion is when information, ideas or behaviors are spread from person to person. It spreads almost like a cold does. A person who sees a friend yawn might also yawn, even if he or she is not tired. A person may also yawn if they hear, see, read about, or even think about yawning.

It Starts In Childhood

Scientists connect contagious yawning to empathy. When a person is empathic, they can sense other people’s feelings. They may even feel the way the other person does. Contagious yawning seems to start when children are 4 or 5 years old, about the same time children start to develop empathy. In old age it falls off, along with empathy.

Scientists looked at why contagious yawning is related to empathy. They say it uses the same neural network. A neural network is a system of cells that send messages to the brain, spine and nerves. Contagious yawning also happens more with friends and family than with strangers.

People are not the only ones who catch yawns from others. Chimpanzees, bonobos, dogs, wolves and other animals do also. Contagious yawning can even spread between animals and humans. Scientists have found that chimpanzees and dogs both catch human yawns.

Strangers Get No Reaction

Science also suggests that women have more empathy than men do. Scientists connect more empathy to more contagious yawning. They say that if women are more empathic than men, then they must catch more yawns, too.

To find out, the Italian scientists took a closer look. They observed people at work, eating dinner and at other places. Over five years, they recorded almost 1,500 cases of yawning. The scientists watched 92 pairs of people who passed a yawn at least three times.

They found no difference between men and women in ordinary yawning. However, women did catch yawns much more often than men did. Scientists also found that both men and women yawned when friends and family yawned. Neither one yawned very often when people that they did not know well yawned.  

Scientists say the fact that women have more empathy could affect more than just social yawning. It could make them better parents, better at communicating, and better at living in groups. Greater empathy may also allow women to have relationships that last longer.

Vocabulary:

a. empathy 

b. urge

b. contagion 

d. involuntary

- the communication of disease from one person to another by close contact (                     )

- the ability to understand and share the feelings of another           (                         )

- done without will or conscious control (                        )

- a strong desire or impulse (                         )

Questions:

1. What was the claim that the scientists from Italy made?

2. What is the process of a yawn?

3. What cause people to yawn?

4. Why women are more contagious to yawn?

5. In your opinion, how does a good sleep affect a person's daily routine?

Grade Level 5

Barbie gets lots of new looks; will more girls want to play with her now?

By Associated Press, adapted by Newsela staff02.02.16

NEW YORK, N.Y. — Poor Barbie. She had plastic surgery to become more socially acceptable. Unfortunately, many people do not like her new look.

Mattel, the company that makes Barbie, announced that the doll has three new body types. She comes in curvy, tall and petite. Barbie will also now come in seven skin tones, 22 eye colors and 24 hairstyles. Michelle Chidoni is a Mattel spokeswoman. She said the product is evolving to "offer more choices" to make "the line more reflective of the world girls see around them."

Too Much Stress On Fashion?

However, not everyone thinks the change is good. Kris Macomber is a professor of sociology at Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina. She's "reluctant to celebrate Barbie's changes because it doesn't change the fact that Barbie dolls and other kinds of fashion dolls still over-emphasize female beauty. Sure, all body types should be valued. And, sure, all skin colors should be valued equally. But why must we keep sending girls the message that being beautiful is so important?"

Josh Golin is with the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. He tries to get companies to stop showing so many commercials to kids. Golin said Barbie's changes are due to activists who for years have challenged her "unrealistic and harmful body type" and worked for change. But body type "was only one of the criticisms," he said. "The other was the brand's relentless focus on appearance and fashion." Mattel cares too much about outside appearance, he thinks.

Fewer Girls Choose Barbie

Kumea Shorter-Gooden is the co-author of "Shifting: The Double Lives of Black Women in America." Shorter-Gooden said in the past Barbie has a bigger impact on black girls struggling with messages about skin color and hair. Shorter-Gooden praised Mattel "for diversifying the size and look of Barbie." However, she noted that "European-American hair still prevails," and that the dolls' outfits still "convey a traditional and constraining gender norm about how girls and women should look."

Barbie's looks may never measure up to society's changing expectations. Another question worth asking is whether kids still want to play with Barbies. 

Barbie sales fell 14 percent in the most recently reported quarter. Worldwide sales have fallen every year since 2012. A study by BAV Consulting found that consumers think of the Barbie brand as being "less relevant" than most of the 3,500 brands BAV studied. BAV also found that consumers think of Barbie as being in the bottom third of all brands when it comes to social responsibility.  However, it is thought of as the top 2 percent when it comes to being traditional.

Some Girls Want Different Dolls

Mattel said it will still sell the original 11.5-inch Barbie. The new versions will begin arriving on U.S. store shelves in March and will roll out globally after that. They are available for preorder at shop.mattel.com, and will ship in February.

Quiana Agbai is an African-American mother of two. She has written about "the effects of dolls not looking like my 5-year-old daughter" on her website, www.harlemlovebirds.com. Agbai said Barbie's new look is "a step in the right direction." However, she noted that "there are brands already filling this need in greater detail." Agbai's husband's family is Nigerian, so she found a Nigerian princess doll for her daughter from a line called Queens of Africa. Agbai herself grew up playing with the American Girl doll Addy, whose story line involved escaping from slavery.

Some, however, saluted the new Barbie wholeheartedly.

New Barbie Is "Real Progress"

Trina Finton is a Hispanic mom from Simi Valley, California, who works in tech. She once bought herself an engineer Barbie from the doll's career line. Finton was "thrilled" to hear about Barbie's new looks, especially the curly hair. In the past, when she's taken her 3-year-old daughter to Target, "I avoid the Barbie aisle. I just don't want her to feel bad that she can't see a doll that looks like her."

Kelly Brownell was a Yale psychology professor in the 1990s. From a 1995 study, he concluded that young girls notice the body shapes of icons like Barbie and translate them into unhealthy images. Today, Brownell is a dean at Duke University. He said the new Barbie "represents real progress." The new Barbie is "beginning to correct the wildly unrealistic body shapes and sizes of earlier days."

Questions:

1.  "But body type "was only one of the criticisms," he said. "The other was the brand's relentless focus on appearance and fashion."

Which of the following words, if it replaced "relentless" in the sentence, would CHANGE the meaning of the sentence?

A. persistent

B. sustained

C. continuous

D. intermittent

2. What are the new features of Barbie?

3. Give one example of who does not think the change is good and why.

4. Do you think the new change of Barbie will attract more girls to play with her and why?

5. In your opinion, does the feature of a toy has any impact on the young generations?

Where the bombs fall day and night

By Los Angeles Times, adapted by Newsela staff

04.16.14

ALEPPO, Syria — A family stood shivering on a balcony in Aleppo’s Anadan suburb as midnight approached. Their sleep had been interrupted by the nightly flight of a government helicopter.

They followed the sound of the helicopter’s whirring blades and listened to scratchy updates from rebels coming over a walkie-talkie.

News came in that the helicopter had dropped two barrel bombs on nearby towns. The bombs are oil drums filled with TNT that can level buildings.

They knew that the helicopters can carry up to four of the bombs. They waited for the last two.

Below them, lights came on in basement bunkers as others sought a small measure of protection. Khansa Laila walked out onto the balcony cloaked in several layers but still shaking in the nighttime chill.

“I woke up from the sound of the alarm, so I’m still cold,” she said, referring to the warning system the town’s residents installed. “Also, fear makes you cold.”

A series of red streaks from a machine gun shot upward against a starry sky. But the streaks rose and fell without striking their target.

Eventually the sound of the helicopter grew faint and was replaced by that of a warplane.

“We don’t take the warplanes seriously anymore,” Laila said. “They launch rockets that are precise, but helicopters drop barrel bombs that can destroy dozens of homes with one barrel.”

The family went to sleep that night to the sound of machine-gun fire and the occasional rocket.

Sad Soundtrack Of War

It is three years into Syria’s conflict. The noise of war has become a familiar companion to daily life here in the country’s largest city. The noise is the sad soundtrack to the gradual destruction of Aleppo and a shrinking civilian population struggling to survive.

For more than three months, Aleppo’s opposition-held neighborhoods and surrounding suburbs have been terrorized nearly daily by the barrel bombs. Activists estimate that more than 2,000 people have been killed in these attacks.

Those still in the city have adjusted to enduring most of President Bashar Assad’s military might with resilience.

In a shoe store, a woman tries on a pair of wedge heels and deems them not comfortable enough “to flee” in. A 1-year-old with curly hair and big brown eyes speaks mostly in mumbles, but one word she knows clearly: "tabit" — it fell.

“A barrel falls and 10 minutes later people return to what they were doing,” said Muhammad. The young man works at a temporary gas station: 12 oil drums resting on their sides serving six varieties of gasoline.

Hours earlier, a barrel bomb had struck a street, hitting three vehicles and killing eight people. With the blood fresh on the pavement, motorists stopped and peered at the deadly damage.

The next day people walked by without a glance; the destroyed vehicles had become one more addition to the city’s scary backdrop.

“Every day we see the names of the dead scrolling across the TV screen; they’ve just become numbers,” one man said. “When I was a kid and someone died we mourned for 40 days, the TV could not be turned on. Now someone dies on one side and you turn around and watch a soap opera.”

On a recent day in an Aleppo vegetable market, a warplane’s low rumble halted all business and conversation.

Unripe almonds and lettuce were momentarily forgotten. Everyone turned their faces upward to track the plane by its sound.

Not until the rumble had faded, leaving only a white trail across the sky, did the people return their attention to the boring particulars of life. The plane was now the concern of another Aleppo neighborhood.

“If it had been a helicopter, they would watch it till it dropped the barrel," Saleh Laila said. Then chaos "would break out and cars would start driving into each other and people would run, trying to get away.”

Deserted Neighborhoods

A couple of charred and stripped vehicles mark the entrance of rebel-held Aleppo.

The helicopters attack day and night. Those attacks, coupled with poundings by warplanes and artillery as well as regular clashes between government and rebel forces, have transformed the once-vibrant commercial hub into one with entire neighborhoods deserted.

More than two-thirds of the city’s population is estimated to have fled north either to Turkey or, for those not allowed passage into the country, along its border in ramshackle refugee tents.

As one Aleppo resident said of the city, “There are fighters, activists and shop owners. No one else is left.”

At A Busy Market

At the scene of twin barrel bombings at a busy market, bodies, or what was left of them, were laid out along a sidewalk.

A man, his shirt bloodied and neck bandaged, smoked a cigarette. Those around him congratulated him on sustaining only a minor injury: “Thank God for your safety.”

“Don’t gather, don’t gather!” yelled one rebel with a rifle. The rebel warned people that a crowd could invite another attack.

Hours later, the broken glass and concrete had been swept and the blood washed away.

Children gathered around an ice cream stand, standing on tippy-toes to peer at the available flavors. Men bought produce from a fruit seller, the color of the oranges bright against the gray of fallen concrete.

Questions:

Questions:

1. Select the sentence that contains a word that is a synonym for "not so clear"?

A.   A family stood shivering on a balcony in Aleppo's Anadan suburb as midnight approached.

B.   They followed the sound of the helicopter's whirring blades and listened to scratchy updates from rebels coming over a walkie-talkie.

C.   Eventually the sound of the helicopter grew faint and was replaced by that of a warplane.

D.   The next day people walked by without a glance; the destroyed vehicles had become one moreaddition to the city's scary backdrop.

2. Which of the following sentences contains a word that is a synonym for "lively"?

A.   They followed the sound of the helicopter's whirring blades and listened to scratchy updates from rebels coming over a walkie-talkie.

B.   With the blood fresh on the pavement, motorists stopped and peered at the deadly damage.

C.   On a recent day in an Aleppo vegetable market, a warplane's low rumble halted all business and conversation.

D.   Regular clashes between government and rebel forces have transformed the once-vibrant commercial hub into one with entire neighborhoods deserted.

3. The reader can learn the following from the illustration EXCEPT:

A. the total number of people killed in Syria

B. the number of children killed in July 2012

C. the number of people killed in Damascus

D. the worst affected city in Syria

4. Which statement BEST describes how the illustration helps increase understanding of the article?

A. The article focuses on the war's effect on adults while the graphic focuses on children.

B. The article gives numbers and details about the war, while the graphic is mainly just for geography.

C. The article is mainly about Aleppo and the graphic is mainly about Damascus.

D. The article gives personal stories and descriptions while the graphic focuses on numbers and facts.