Reading on the environment: the bac chain with a two-paragraph gapped summary

I. READING COMPREHENSION. Read the text below carefully, then answer the questions that follow it.

1. On a July afternoon, the surface of the asphalt car park behind the Belleview housing estate in the city of Marlow Heath can reach 52°C. Fifty metres away, on the ground under a young forest no bigger than a tennis court, the thermometer reads 31°C. Three years ago, both places were car parks. The difference is the work of about 300 residents, who dug up the asphalt with rented diggers and planted 600 young trees of 30 local species in a single weekend. "People thought we were mad," says Grace Okafor, a nurse who led the project. "You cannot plant a forest in a car park, they told us."

2. The method they used was developed in Japan in the 1970s by the botanist Akira Miyawaki. Instead of planting a few trees far apart, as parks usually do, volunteers plant three to five saplings per square metre and cover the soil with a thick layer of straw. The trees compete for light, so they grow quickly upwards, and after two or three years of watering and weeding, the forest looks after itself. Supporters claim that such forests grow up to ten times faster than ordinary plantations, although some scientists say that this figure has never been properly measured.

3. For the residents of Belleview, the benefits have gone far beyond the shade. The tiny forest now attracts birds, bees and hedgehogs that had not been seen on the estate for decades, and it absorbs rainwater that used to flood the ground floors of two buildings every winter. Older residents, who rarely left their flats, now meet there every morning to water the trees, and the local police report fewer complaints about noise and litter in the area.

4. City officials were at first suspicious of the idea, but the figures have changed their minds. Marlow Heath has now pledged to create twenty more mini-forests on unused land by 2030 as part of its climate plan against extreme heat, which scientists link to global warming. Grace, however, warns against treating tiny forests as a magic solution. "Twenty small forests will not cool a whole city," she says. "What they do is show people that the environment is not something far away. It starts at the bottom of your building."

Practice text written in the style of the adapted press articles of the bac papers.

COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS

1. Tick (✓) the most appropriate option. (1 mark)

The text is mainly about residents who

a- turned a car park into a small forest to cool their area.

b- protested against the destruction of a city park.

c- developed a new way of planting trees in Japan.

2. Pick out details from the text showing that the following statements are false. (3 marks)

a. The residents needed several months to plant the trees. (parag. 1)

b. In the Miyawaki method, young trees are planted far apart. (parag. 2)

c. City officials supported the project from the very beginning. (parag. 4)

3. Complete the following paragraph with three words from paragraphs 3 and 4. One word per blank. (3 marks)

The mini-forest has brought wildlife back to the estate, and it now ① ____________ the rainwater that used to flood some buildings. Impressed by the results, the city has ② ____________ to create twenty more forests, but Grace does not see them as a ③ ____________ solution to extreme heat.

4. Find words in the text meaning nearly the same as: (2 marks)

a. say that something is true, without proof (parag. 2): ____________

b. very small (parag. 3): ____________

5. What do the underlined words in the text refer to? (2 marks)

a. "they" (parag. 2): ____________

b. "It" (parag. 4): ____________

6. Give a personal justified answer to the following question. (1 mark)

Would you volunteer to plant a mini-forest in your neighbourhood? Why? Why not?

I ____________ volunteer to plant a mini-forest in my neighbourhood because ____________.