Reading_for_the_Real_World_1_2nd_Ed

33discrimination --- prejudicial treatment

34orphan --- a child whose parents have died

39anoint --- to choose

40fortune --- wealth

43	transfusion --- the direct transferring of blood into a blood vessel.
45	hemorrhage --- heavy bleeding from a ruptured blood vessel

brand in Great Britain, and it was the 28th best-known brand in the world. As The Body Shop grew, Roddick became an activist for

30several environmental and social causes. These included protecting the rain forests, helping poor farmers, saving whales, and working to end sex discrimination. In 1990, she founded Children on the Edge, a charity that helps orphans in

35	Europe and Asia. She also helped establish a
	magazine called The Big Issue, which was produced and sold by homeless people.
	Her volunteer work earned Roddick many awards and honors. In 1991, she
	received the World Vision Award for Development and Initiative. In 2003, the
	Queen of England anointed her a Dame of the British Empire.
40	In 2005, Roddick announced that she was going to give away her fortune.
	It was estimated to be more than $100 million. In 2007, Roddick told the public
	that she had hepatitis C, an incurable disease. She had gotten it from a blood
	transfusion in 1971. It was diagnosed in 2004. During the last three years of
	her life, she campaigned to raise public awareness of hepatitis C. Roddick died of

45a brain hemorrhage on September 10, 2007. She was sixty-four. She did not leave any of her money to her daughters. Instead, she gave it all to charities.

Reading Time

_______ minutes _______ seconds

539 words

121

122

Reading Comprehension

AMark each statement as either true (T) or false (F) according to the reading.

1.____ Roddick is not the last name Anita was born with.

2.____ Her husband’s dream was to open an eco-friendly cosmetics store.

3.____ Roddick was worth over $100 million dollars.

4.____ When she died, she gave her money to her children and charity organizations.

BChoose the best answer.

1.What is the main idea of the reading?

a.Anita Roddick was the first woman to sell all-natural cosmetics.

b.Anita Roddick dedicated her life to helping others and the environment.

c.Anita Roddick deserved the many awards and honors she received.

d.Anita Roddick is an example for women to fight for their rights.

2.Which is NOT an ideal mentioned in the reading that Anita believed in?

a.Cosmetics should be made from all-natural ingredients.

b.Profits went to aid assistance for disaster victims.

c.Her products should not be tested on animals.

d.There should be fair trade with third-world countries.

3.What cause did Roddick campaign for in the last three years of her life?

a.Working to end sex discrimination

b.Raising money for orphaned children in Asia and Africa

c.To raise awareness about hepatitis C

d.Saving the whales

CFor the next two questions, look for the answers in the passage and write them on the lines provided.

1.Why did Anita open up her first Body Shop cosmetics store?

______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________

2.What is the meaning of the term “ethical consumerism”?

______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________

Summary

Fill in the blanks with the words or phrases from the list. Use each word or phrase only once.

activist	cause	siblings
cosmetics	maiden name	charities

Anita Roddick along with her parents and three 1 __________________ fled from Italy before the start of World War II. Her 2 __________________ was Perilli and changed to Roddick after she married Gordon Roddick in 1970. Six years later, she decided to open up a(n) 3 __________________ shop while her husband was on a horse riding trip from South America to North America. During her life, she became a passionate 4 __________________ who worked to raise awareness about many problems that are effecting people around the world. One

5 __________________ she felt strongly about was the protection of the environment. In 2007, she was estimated to be worth over $100 million dollars, which she donated to 6 __________________ when she died.

Vocabulary Extension

Here are six words that are related to the topic but are not in the reading. Fill in each blank with the best word from the list. Use each word only once.

lobby

civic

resolution

justice

altruistic

humanitarian

1.A person is considered __________ if they are concerned for or devoted to the welfare of others above themselves.

2.The United Nations sends __________ aid to countries that are suffering from epidemics such as AIDS or malaria.

3.One method for causing social change is to __________ representatives to support adopting laws or policies that help their cause.

4.It is the __________ duty of every citizen of a country to vote and participate in the democratic system.

5.It is the responsibility of the court to seek __________ for all people without prejudice.

6.There needs to be a(n) __________ to this problem before the situation gets worse.

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Supplemental Reading

5

10

The Green Myth

Track 40

“Green” has become a popular English phrase. It means that something is good for the environment. Customers are looking for products that are “natural,” “pure,” and “made from recycled

material.” They feel good about helping the Earth and about buying food and cosmetics that are healthier for their bodies. Anita Roddick sensed this when she founded The Body Shop in 1976. She advertised cosmetics that were “100 percent pure” and boasted that The Body Shop’s products were not tested on animals. Also, she said The Body Shop did not take unfair advantage of the workers in poor countries.

For some people, this sounded too good to be true. In 1994, reporter Jon Entine wrote a famous magazine article disputing Roddick’s claims. He said that The Body Shop cosmetics were actually only 1 percent pure. Entine also pointed

15out that most of the ingredients in The Body Shop’s products were, indeed, tested on animals. This prompted Roddick to change the phrase on her cosmetic labels. Instead of “not tested on animals,” it became “against animal testing.” Later, other critics joined in. The London chapter of Greenpeace accused The Body Shop of

exploiting poor workers.

20 Today many other “green” companies face similar criticism. Are products marketed as “green” really good for environment, or do producers simply claim that they are so they can make more money? It’s a tough question. Thanks to writers such as Entine, however, one thing is certain: They are less likely to trust the manufacturer’s word.

Discussion

Discuss the following questions.

1.Do writers such as Jon Entine do more harm than good with their articles attacking business? Why or why not?

2.Should a company be punished for false advertising? Why or why not?

U N I T 11 Cross-Cultural Viewpoints 1

Ideas

About Beauty

Pre-Reading Questions

Think about the following questions.

1.What is the first thing you usually notice about another person? Why is that so?

2.Why do you think that you notice that part of a person first?

3.Do your friends notice this part of other people first also? If not, what do your friends notice first?

Vocabulary Preview

Match each word or phrase with the correct definition.

1.	factor	a. alone; apart from all others
2.	find out	b. to discover
3.	influence	c. one thing of possible influence
4.	isolated	d. to put in order from best to worst
5.	judge	e. to say if something is good or bad / right or wrong
6.	rate	f. to have some effect on

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Ideas About Beauty Track 41

Researchers have collected convincing evidence that people tend to rate beauty in much the same way. Groups even from different cultures do not really show that much difference in judging the main factors of

beauty. However, researchers do not agree on whether the factors which influence 5 how most people judge beauty come from genetics (nature) or culture (society).

Devendra Singh, a psychologist at the University of Texas at Austin, conducted an experiment in 1993 to find out if different men found different female body shapes attractive. Dr. Singh gave drawings of different female body shapes to a variety of men and asked them to choose the most attractive body

10shape. Even though men came from a wide range of cultural backgrounds, they all tended to rate the “hourglass” body shape as the most attractive. In fact, Dr. Singh found that any woman whose waist is 70 percent as wide as her hips is judged as attractive by most men no matter how big the woman is overall. Body shape, not weight, seemed to be viewed as the critical factor for attractiveness

15	by men in this survey.
	Dr. Singh explained this result from the perspective of
	evolution. Women who develop an hourglass shape have a
	relatively higher level of estrogen, a female hormone, than
	women who do not have this body shape. Because estrogen
20	levels also influence fertility, men may subconsciously view a
	woman with an hourglass figure as a good candidate for
	producing children. Therefore, according to Dr. Singh, the men who
	choose these types of women have the potential for having more
	children. Over time, evolution would favor men who have

25inherited genes from their fathers which influence the selection of this type of “fertile” woman.

11	hourglass --- an instrument filled with sand to measure time
14	critical --- most necessary

20fertility --- the ability to have children

20subconsciously --- without thought

21candidate --- a person to choose

23 potential --- capable of doing

25 inherit --- to get; to receive

30	exposure to --- experience of
41	reliability --- accuracy; ability to be believed
53	versus --- against

Douglas Yu, a biologist at Imperial College in London, disagrees with Dr. Singh’s hypothesis. Dr. Yu thinks that culture, especially culture developed through

30exposure to mass entertainment and advertising, has had the largest influence on how men judge beauty. In order to test his theory, Dr. Yu traveled to southeast Peru to interview men in an isolated community far from the reach of modern television,

35movies, and magazines. Through his own survey, Dr. Yu found that the men in this isolated community preferred heavier women with a wider waist than the body shape preferred by the men in Dr. Singh’s study. Because this

small community has lived apart from western mass communication, their own

40	culture has not been influenced by outside standards of beauty.
	In order to check the reliability of his study, Dr. Yu surveyed two other
	groups of men from this same community. However, the second and third
	groups surveyed by Dr. Yu had more exposure to western entertainment and
	advertising. The results of these later surveys showed that as men from this

45isolated community came into contact with western movies and magazines, their standards of beauty began to change more toward the western standard of

beauty. Dr. Yu concluded from these findings that even if evolution played a part in men’s selection of mates, cultural influences are more powerful in the end and work faster in changing men’s standards.

50 With both satellite communication and the Internet flooding every corner of the world with images and information from almost every culture, it is becoming harder and harder to find isolated communities. Soon it may be impossible to prove which side is correct in the genetics versus culture debate simply because there will be no uninfluenced groups left to ask.

Reading Time

_______ minutes _______ seconds

578 words

127

128

Reading Comprehension

AMark each statement as either true (T) or false (F) according to the reading.

1.____ Researchers have found that only genetics have shaped men’s standards of beauty.

2.____ Both studies in this reading used surveys to collect data.

3.____ All of the men that Dr. Yu talked to had never watched television.

4.____ Media has a great influence on men’s perceptions of beauty.

BChoose the best answer.

1.What is the main idea of the reading?

a.Contrasting studies of how people judge beauty

b.Describing the most beautiful body shape

c.Explaining how beauty has changed over time

d.Listing one culture’s ideas of beauty

2.What did the men in Dr. Singh’s survey rate more important than weight?

a.Breast and hip size

b.Breast and waist size

c.Hip and leg size

d.Waist and hip size

3.Where did Dr. Yu find a community of men who had no exposure to mass entertainment?

a.Africa

b.Australia

c.On an island

d.South America

CFor the next two questions, look for the answers in the passage and write them on the lines provided.

1.What do some people believe the “hourglass” body shape implies about a woman?

______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________

2.Why will Dr. Yu’s study be difficult to do again?

______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________

Summary

Directions: An introductory sentence for a brief summary of the passage is provided below. Select THREE answer choices to complete the summary.

First Sentence: Researchers do not agree as to what factors have a greater influence on how most people judge beauty.

1.One perspective believes that the hourglass body shape is rated highest by men because the evolution of the brain associates this body figure with fertility.

2.In modern times, the power of mass media is thought to be a stronger influence than genetics because it changes a man’s idea of beauty.

3.Conducting a survey is the most reliable to find out how men judge a woman’s beauty.

4.As the world becomes more globalized, it will become more difficult to prove which side is correct because there will be no one left who is uninfluenced by the mass media.

5.If a woman’s waist is 70 percent as wide as her hips, she is judged as attractive by most men even if she is overweight.

Vocabulary Extension

Here are six words that are related to the topic but are not in the reading. Fill in each blank with the best word from the list. Use each word only once.

spouse

sterile

gorgeous

symmetry

appealing

consensus

1.A __________ is a wife or a husband.

2.She is so beautiful that she is just __________.

3.They can’t have children because they are __________.

4.I don’t care about appearance as much as personality. If someone has a good personality, that is very __________ to me.

5.“Are you all in agreement?” “Yes, we have reached a __________.”

6.Scientists have found out that if a face is well balanced or has __________, people think it is more beautiful.

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130

Supplemental Reading

Exporting Beauty

Track 42

Venezuela may make most of its money from exporting oil, but this country is probably more well known for exporting beautiful women. Ever since 1985, there has always been a woman from Venezuela in the

finals of both the Miss World and Miss Universe contests. In fact, in 1995

5women from Venezuela held both titles. No other country comes close to matching Venezuela’s record for sending winners to these contests.

How does a country with only 21 million people do it? The answer is probably connected to the Miss Venezuela Academy, a special school for any Miss World or Miss Universe contestant run by Osmel Sousa. With his staff, Sousa chooses

10	women from discos, shopping centers, schools, and off the street to apply for his
	school. Other women come to the school on their own. A few of the things that
	Sousa and his staff look for are age (only women between the ages of
	seventeen and twenty-four are considered), education (the women
	must be able to answer difficult contest questions), and height (the
15	women must be at least 1.7 meters/5 feet 7 inches). And one more
	thing, the women must look good in a swimsuit.
	The finalists for the school are chosen in March so that the
	school’s special plastic surgeons will have time to work on the
	women because everything must be healed by September, when the

20contests begin. The surgery is all paid for by the school, so few of the women complain. After completing the academy, even the women who don’t win Miss World or Miss Universe end up in modeling, broadcasting, or acting.

Discussion

Discuss the following questions.

1.The reading says that the “hourglass” body shape for women is preferred by men. What type of body shape for men do you think is preferred by women? Why?

2.Which of the two studies from the first reading do you find more convincing? Why?