Academic Reading and Writing

CENTRE FOR LANGUAGE STUDIES, UNIMAS PBI 1032: ACADEMIC READING AND WRITING Learning Unit 2: READING SKILLS By the end of this session, you should be able to: identify what the writer has stated literally (read the lines) infer what the writer has stated (read between the lines) apply ideas within the text to what you already know (read beyond the lines) A. Reading Academic Texts Academic texts are relatively formal in structure and style. They might be textbooks or just straightforward texts.To increase the amount of information that you can extract from a single reading of a section, chapter or article in an academic text, you need to use efficient academic reading strategies. Some of the skills which are essential in academic reading are skimming and scanning for specific information or details, making inferences based on what is stated and applying ideas with the text to what you already know. B. Identifying Specific Information To identify specific information, you should begin b y scanning the topic sentences (i. e. he sentence which makes the point of the paragraph and which is usually the first sentence of the paragraph). Locating the topic sentence helps you to stay focus on finding the needed information. Task 1 Read the following passage and provide the most appropriate answers for the corresponding questions. Social Influence 1 Of the many influences on human behaviour, social influences are the most constant. When we hear the term social influence, most of us think of attempts of someone to persuade us to change our actions or opinions. The television usually comes to mind.However, the major influence on people is people’s presence. Many of the most important forms of social influence are unintentional and the effects we humans have on one another occur due to the fact that we are in each other’s physical presence. In 1898, a psychologist named Triplett made an interesting study. In checking the speed records of bicycle racers, he notic ed that better speed records were obtained when cyclists raced against each other than when they raced against the clock. This observation led Triplett to perform another experiment. He asked children to turn a wheel as fast as possible for a certain period of time.Sometimes two children worked at the same time in the same room, each with his wheel; at other times, they worked alone. The results confirmed his theory that children worked faster in co-action, which is when another child doing the same thing was present. Therefore, the experiments proved that humans perform significantly better with the presence of another person when doing a task. 2 ARW-SEM2-2013-LU2-READING-SKILLS 48 CENTRE FOR LANGUAGE STUDIES, UNIMAS PBI 1032: ACADEMIC READING AND WRITING 3 Soon after Triplett’s experiments, it was discovered that the presence of a passive spectator was enough to improve one’s performance.This was discovered in an experiment on muscular effort by Meumann in 1910, who found that subjects lifted a weight faster whenever the psychologist was in the room. Later experiments have confirmed this audience effect that provides several contributions to humans. Firstly, it helps to motivate a person to perform better. Secondly, it drives a person to break the psychological barrier. This is apparent in sport competitions in which crowds have a great effect on athletes’ performance, and it is normally referred to as home-ground advantage. For example, footballers tend to win more matches hen playing in front of their own fans. It appears that co-action and audience effects in humans are caused by the individual’s cognitive concerns about competition and the evaluation of performance that others will make. We learn as we grow up that others praise or criticize, reward or punish our performances, and this raises our drive level when we perform in front of others. Thus, even the early studies of co-action found that if all elements of competition are removed, co-action effects are reduced or eliminated. Similarly, audience effects are a function of a person’s interpretation of how much he is being evaluated. adapted from Simon, 2010) 4 1. Based on the information provided in paragraph 1, what is the main influence in changing a person’s behaviour and views? ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ 2. What does the underlined phrase â€Å"comes to mind† in paragraph 1 mean? ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ 3. According to the passage, what was the result of Triplett’s two co-action experiments in 1898? ___________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ 4. Briefly explain TWO (2) reasons that caused the existence of co-action and audience effects in humans. ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ ARW-SEM2-2013-LU2-READING-SKILLS 49 CENTRE FOR LANGUAGE STUDIES, UNIMAS PBI 1032: ACADEMIC READING AND WRITING C. Making Inferences Writers often tell you more than they say directly. They give you hints or clues that help you â€Å"read between the lines†.Using these clues to give you a deeper understanding of your reading is called inferring. When you infer, you go beyond the surface details to see other meanings that the details suggest or imply (not stated). Task 2 Warming-Up: Try to infer the possible message of the following cartoons. Discuss the messages with your peers and explain why your message is acceptable. Possible message: ______________________________ ______________________________ Possible message: ______________________________ ______________________________ ARW-SEM2-2013-LU2-READ ING-SKILLS 50 CENTRE FOR LANGUAGE STUDIES, UNIMASPBI 1032: ACADEMIC READING AND WRITING Task 3 Making Inferences: Read the short excerpts taken from several academic articles and answer the questions given. Excerpt 1 During the recession of the mid-1980s, there was an increase in graduate unemployment in Malaysia. With the recovery of the economy towards the end of the 1980s, graduate unemployment was slightly reduced thanks to government’s effort to create more jobs. However, graduate unemployment that existed during the 1998 currency crisis still persists until today as many companies were forced to merge and lay off workers.It has been reported that the number of unemployed graduates had increased from 45,000 in 2000 to 85,000 in 2005 (Sim, 2006). What is the main cause of the increasing rate of graduate unemployment in Malaysia? A. Limited job opportunities due to economic instability. B. Currency crisis in 1998 reduced salary of many jobs. C. Lack of efforts by the gover nment to improve the economy. D. The impact of the global economic recession in the mid-1980s. Excerpt 2 Students are required to take English exam as a compulsory requirement for entrance to public university.MUET (Malaysian undergraduate English Test) result for new entry student for the 2007/8 intake at one public university which can be considered as a typical sample for other public universities indicated that most students scored below the satisfactory level in English competency. From the population of 2916 new students’ intake at this public university, about 72. 7% has a score of Bands 1, 2 and 3. This is because all they need is to get the MUET certificate regardless of their Bands (Mohini, 2008). Why did many students still score below the satisfactory level though MUET is a compulsory entrance requirement?A. Students lack initiatives to improve their English. B. English is often taken for granted since it is accepted as unimportant. C. Majority of the programmes a t university does not have a minimum Band requirement. D. A high MUET band is not a necessity for university entrance. Excerpt 3 It is all too apparent in this study that many students, often very good students, suffer needlessly when doing group assignments. While some academics might claim that it is good to let students face problems arising from group work, it is pointless having them to face problems that they will not see in the workplace.Simply making students do assignments together is not preparing them for team work in industry. It is not simulating â€Å"real life in industry†. It causes stress to many students and gives them grades they do not deserve, especially when the better ones are penalized for the lack of efforts by others (Ford & Maurice, 2011). Why do good students suffer from doing group assignments? A. Group assignments reduce lecturers’ marking load. B. Group assignments do not relate to their future work life. C. Group assignments’ grad es do not reflect their actual ability.D. Group assignments help them manage problems when working together. ARW-SEM2-2013-LU2-READING-SKILLS 51 CENTRE FOR LANGUAGE STUDIES, UNIMAS PBI 1032: ACADEMIC READING AND WRITING D. Reading Practice Task 3 Read the passage below and choose the best answers (A, B, C or D) for the questions that follow Break Your Bad Habits By Amy Novotney As an undergraduate student, you probably got A's despite less-than-ideal study habits: reading in front of the television, staying up all night cramming, checking e-mail every 10 minutes while working on a paper.These behaviors may have cut it in college, but graduate school calls for a better set of strategies, says University of Virginia psychology professor Daniel Willingham, PhD. According to psychology faculty and other experts, here are the top five habits that hold graduate students back: 1. Highlighting. Dog-earing pages and highlighting journal article passages are popular but worthless exercises wh en it comes to helping you remember information later on, Willingham says. That's because they don't require students to engage with the material.Instead, he suggests students find a more active strategy that forces them to think about the meaning of what they're reading. This might be something as simple as taking notes on important points, outlining how journal articles fit together or spending a moment after reading a paragraph to reflect on how it fits into a piece's bigger picture. In a study by Pintrich and De Groot (1990), students who asked themselves â€Å"why? † at the end of each sentence while reading a factual passage about a university were significantly more likely to remember important points than students who were simply told to read the passage and remember it. . Cramming for exams. When you pull an all-nighter, your memories of the concepts you’re studying becomes associated with a particular time and environment, making them harder to retrieve, says Willingham. That's bad news for crammers, as most tests aren't handed out at 2 a. m. There are several reasons why distributing your studying throughout the semester is more long-lasting. One is that your brain doesn't make that association because the knowledge is cued and retrieved at many different points over time.Willingham's claims are backed up by Webb and Sheeran’s (2006) meta-analysis of 317 experiments examining the spacing of student study periods. The authors found that when participants studied at two different points in time, they recalled a greater percentage of the material than when the same amount of study time was nearly uninterrupted. 5 10 15 20 25 30 ARW-SEM2-2013-LU2-READING-SKILLS 52 CENTRE FOR LANGUAGE STUDIES, UNIMAS PBI 1032: ACADEMIC READING AND WRITING 3. Unhealthy eating. With both time and money in short supply, graduate students often skip lunch when rushing to class or hit the vending machine for a late-night snack.Yet the high-fat, empty-calo rie foods they often choose don't provide the energy needed to work effectively, and can also take a toll on the brain. A study by Manos (1999) linked memory loss to a diet high in saturated fat and cholesterol. And a 2008 meta-analysis of 160 studies examining food's effect on the brain showed that omega-3 fatty acids, which are found in salmon, walnuts and kiwi fruit, improve learning and memory (Hillman & Erickson, 1999). 4. Multitasking. Many students pride themselves on their ability to attend to several tasks at once, but multitasking undermines efficiency, according to a study by Miller (2006).It takes extra time to shift mental gears every time you switch tasks—that means when you sit down to work, close your e-mail program so it doesn't distract you. â€Å"If you ask any graduate student what they do first when they sit down to study, 99 percent say they check their e-mail, and then the next thing you know, an hour has gone by,† Miller says. When you're studyi ng, you may even need to disable your Internet connection and turn off your cell phone, she says. 5. Assuming you remember what you've read.According to a Pickering and Ferreira’s (2006) meta-analysis of 30 years of research, we aren't very good at assessing how well we understand something. You may feel well-versed in the social psychology theories you learned in class after reading over your notes several times, but familiarity doesn't mean you'll be able to recall the material for a test, Willingham says. To gauge whether you've studied enough, explain the material to someone else or create a test for yourself, he says. â€Å"Quizzing one another is the No. 1 thing I recommend to students,† Willingham says. It's a much more realistic assessment of what you know because it forces you to get inside the professor's head and think about what they are likely to ask about the material. † (adapted from Novotney, 2009) 35 40 45 50 55 60 For Questions 1-5, choose a wor d/phrase that is closest in meaning to the underlined word as used in the text. 1. Dog-earing pages †¦ (line 9) A. m a r kin g wit h book m a r ks B. dr a win g pict u r es on pages C. foldin g t h e cor n er s of pa ges D. wr it in g down n ot es on t h e side 2. †¦ making them harder to retrieve (line 24) A. or ga n ise B. pr ocess C. r eca ll D. t im u la t e ARW-SEM2-2013-LU2-READING-SKILLS 53 CENTRE FOR LANGUAGE STUDIES, UNIMAS PBI 1032: ACADEMIC READING AND WRITING 3. †¦ can also take a toll on the brain (line 38) A. ch a r ge B. disast er C. ba d effect D. lou d r in gin g 4. It takes extra time to shift mental gears †¦ (line 45) A. speed up wor k B. slow down t h inkin g C. t h in k a t a n a lyt ica l level D. ch a n ge focu s of concen t r a t ion 5. You may feel well-versed in †¦ (line 54) A. com pet en t B. en t h u siast ic C. h a bit u a l D. r em em ber For Questions 6-15, choose the most appropriate answers based on your reading. . Which of t he following is an ideal study habit for undergraduate students? A. Studying while watching television. B. Studying into the wee hours of the morning. C. Interacting in emails while doing an assignment. D. Searching the internet for information on assignments. 7. Which sentence contains the main idea for the paragraph on highlighting? A. Dog-earing pages and highlighting journal article passages are popular but worthless exercises when it comes to helping you remember information later on, Willingham says B. That's because they don't require students to engage with the material. C.Instead, he suggests students find a more active strategy that forces them to think about the meaning of what they're reading D. This might be something as simple as taking notes on important points, outlining how journal articles fit together or spending a moment after reading a paragraph to reflect on how it fits into a piece's bigger picture. 8. According to the paragraph 2, why are crammers unable to r emember what they studied the night before? A. Memory is better at night but tests are usually not conducted at night. B. People usually lose their concentration if they study in one long sitting. C.What is studied is stored in the memory as a single episode and is not easily recalled. D. The amount of time spent studying in one night is less than that for a whole semester. ARW-SEM2-2013-LU2-READING-SKILLS 54 CENTRE FOR LANGUAGE STUDIES, UNIMAS PBI 1032: ACADEMIC READING AND WRITING 9. Why do students end up with unhealthy eating habits that affect their memory and learning? A. Food stalls are not open at night. B. They are busy and short of money. C. High-fat, empty-calorie food is tasty. D. They have lectures during lunch hour. 10. What food should students avoid if they want to improve their memory and learning?A. Fish. B. Fries. C. Fruits. D. Nuts. 11. What is the main idea for the paragraph on multitasking? A. Multitasking is an ability to be proud of. B. Multitasking is not an efficient way to study. C. Checking email should not be part of multitasking. D. Internet connection is a distractor when multitasking. 12. What is the author not saying in paragraph on multitasking? A. Students should do the less mentally taxing tasks first. B. It is better to finish one task first before starting another. C. Email, internet connection and cell phones are distractive. D. To save time, graduate students should not check their email. 3. Why do students often assume they remember what they have read? A. They are familiar with it. B. They have copied the notes. C. They have attended the lecture. D. They can explain it to someone. 14. According to Willingham, which is the best way to assess how well we understand something? A. See whether we can recall the information in the lecture. B. Find out whether we can do the test given by the lecturer. C. Ask each other questions on the information in the lecture. D. Set a test on the lecture and answer the questions ourselves . 15. Which text? A. B. C. D. f the following less-than-ideal study habits is not an idea found in the Eating at irregular hours. Doing last-minute studying. Reading articles superficially. Doing many things at one time. ARW-SEM2-2013-LU2-READING-SKILLS 55 CENTRE FOR LANGUAGE STUDIES, UNIMAS PBI 1032: ACADEMIC READING AND WRITING Task 4 Read the passage below and choose the best answers (A, B, C or D) for the questions that follow. The Record-breaking Book 1 The biggest house of cards, the longest tongue, and of course, the tallest man: these are among the thousands of records logged in the famous Guinness Book of Records.Created in 1955 after a debate concerning Europe's fastest game bird, what began as a marketing tool sold to pub landlords to promote Guinness, an Irish drink, became one of the bestselling copyright titles of all time. In time, the book have sold 120 million copies in over 100 countries, quite a leap from its humble beginnings. 2 In its early years, the book aims to satisfy man's curiosity about the natural world around him. Its two principal fact finders, twins Norris and Ross McWhirter, travelled the globe to collect facts.It was their task to find and document aspects of life that can be sensed or observed, things that can be quantified or measured. But not just any things. They were only interested in superlatives: the biggest and the best. It was during this period that some of the hallmark Guinness Records were documented, answering such questions as â€Å"What is the brightest star? † and â€Å"What is the biggest spider? † 3 Once aware of the public's thirst for such knowledge, the book's authors began to branch out to cover little-known facts. They started documenting human achievements as well.A forerunner for reality television, the Guinness Book gave people a chance to become famous for accomplishing extraordinary and often pointless tasks. Records were set in 1955 for consuming 24 raw eggs in 14 minutes and in 1981 for the fastest solving of a Rubik's Cube (which took a mere 38 seconds). In 1979, a man yodelled non-stop for ten and a quarter hours. 4 In its latest form, the book has found a new home on the internet. No longer restricted to the physical paper, the Guinness World Records website contains seemingly infinite facts concerning such topics as the most powerful combustion engine, or the world's longest train.More and more facts and achievements are added. While there is no denying that each of these facts has its individual attraction, the increasing number of strange achievements represents an important change from the education-oriented facts of earlier editions. It seems Guinness World Records has changed its focus to cater to the audience that wants entertainment more than educational values. 5 Originating as a simple bar book, the Guinness Book of Records has changed over decades to provide insight into the full variety of modern life.Although one may be more likely to learn abo ut the widest human mouth than the highest number of casualties in a Civil War, the Guinness World Records website offers a peek into the future of fact-finding and record-documenting. (adapted from Michael & Timothy, 2012) ARW-SEM2-2013-LU2-READING-SKILLS 56 CENTRE FOR LANGUAGE STUDIES, UNIMAS PBI 1032: ACADEMIC READING AND WRITING 1. What caused the introduction of Guinness Book of Records in 1955? A. The search for bestselling titles. B. The debate by several pub landlords. C. The marketing tool to promote Guinness. D. The arguments on the Europe's fastest game bird.What was the main purpose of Guinness Book of Records in its early years? A. To document various life happenings B. To let the fact finders do the superlatives. C. To fulfil the curiosity within each human being. D. To travel around the world and find unbelievable facts. As used in paragraph 2, which is the best definition for â€Å"principal†? A. main B. belief C. senior D. original How did the Guinness Book r eality television show give people a chance to become famous? A. By accomplishing a task within a given time. B. By showing off their eating and singing habits. C. By presenting their skills in front of the audience. D.By performing strange and usually pointless tasks. 2. 3. 4. 5. What is the primary benefit of making Guinness World Records available online? A. It is more environmental friendly. B. It helps to save the cost of printing the book. C. The book can be sold to a larger number of readers. D. More facts can be added without the restriction of the paper. According to the author, the major difference between older editions of the Guinness Book of Records and the new Guinness World Records website involves A. a move from fact-finding to the recording of achievements B. a change in focus from educational to entertaining material C. departure from book sales being limited to local pubs and bars D. an end to the use of educational facts as a means to promote Guinness Why does Gu inness World Records include more strange achievements? A. It adds entertainment values to the records. B. It allows more people to achieve the impossible. C. More people were capable of doing weird things. D. The education-oriented facts are very hard to find. 6. 7. ARW-SEM2-2013-LU2-READING-SKILLS 57 CENTRE FOR LANGUAGE STUDIES, UNIMAS PBI 1032: ACADEMIC READING AND WRITING 8. As used in paragraph 4, which is the best definition for â€Å"infinite†?A. certain B. excellent C. unlimited D. very little Which of the following statements is TRUE? A. The reality television show for Guinness Book of Records was a failure. B. The title for the Guinness Book of Records was derived from an Irish bird. C. Norris and Ross McWhirter were the first fact-finders for Guinness Book of Records. D. Changes to Guinness Book of Records are expected in the future since many people dislike reading silly records. What does the author imply by â€Å"Guinness World Records website offers a peek int o the future of fact-finding and record-documenting† (paragraph 5)?A. Guinness World Records website will continue to be more entertainmentbased. B. Finding facts on various records to fit into the website would be harder in the future. C. The need for Guinness World Records website to be maintained for future generations. D. The Guinness World Records website may not be visited in the future since it has excluded educational facts. 9. 10. IMPORTANT NOTE: In the final exam, the reading section will only include multiple-choice questions (MCQ) ARW-SEM2-2013-LU2-READING-SKILLS 58