A Few Examples of Short Passages.

A Few Examples of Short Passages.

THESE LESSONS ARE FOR STUDENTS OF ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE.
No matter how many ideas it may contain, a sentence must always express a complete thought. There are three types of sentence: simple, compound, and complex.
The simple sentence expresses one idea only. It has one subject and one predicate.
Example: The man (subject) knocked at the door (predicate).
The compound sentence contains more than one idea. In this type of sentence all the ideas expressed have an equal value. Example: The man knocked at the door and waited for an answer.
The complex sentence contains one main idea (called the "main clause") and one or more secondary ideas (called "subordinate clauses"). Example: As soon as he arrived at the house (subordinate clause) the man knocked at the door (main clause).
The words which are used to combine sentences are called "conjunctions."
In NARRATIVE COMPOSITIONS you are required to tell a story or write about an event. Always tell things in the order in which they happened. It is generally preferable to keep to the past tense.
I include an example, a paragraph that follows...
"Follow that Bus!"
"I jumped off the bus before it stopped and began walking down the street. As I had arrived early, I decided to look at the shop windows before going home. The idea made me quite happy, but at the same time I had the unpleasant feeling that I had forgotten something. I stopped in the middle of the street and began searching my pockets. All of a sudden I remembered that I was without my briefcase. I had left it on the bus and it was full of important papers. The thought was enough to make me start running down the street, though, by now, the bus was out of sight..."
In DESCRIPTIVE COMPOSITIONS you are generally required to describe people, objects, or scenes. Your description may take the form of a personal impression or may be purely imaginary. Whatever the case, try to include interesting details.
I include an example, a paragraph that follows...
"Under the Sea."
"The diver could just see a dark mass near the rocks. He swam nearer and after turning on his flashlight, he was able to make out the remains of an old ship. It was covered with mud and shells. Fish swam through a great hole in its side. The diver went through the hole and came to what had once been the engine-room. In the torchlight it looked empty and ghostly. Sea-weeds seemed to grow out of the ship's engines so that they took strange shapes. As he looked round him, the diver found it hard to believe that men had once worked there..."
A SHORT PASSAGE.
"The journey two naval officers made some time ago to the very deepest point on the earth makes us realize how much of the world still remains to be explored. The two men went down seven miles to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean inside a small steel ball called a "bathyscaphe" to find out if there are any ocean currents or signs of life. Above the ball there was a special tank full of gasoline which was slowly emptied into the water to make the bathyscaphe heavy enough to complete its journey.
It was necessary to set out early, so that the bathyscaphe would come to the surface in daylight, and so be easily found by the mother ship which would be waiting for it. The divers began preparations at dawn and soon afterwards, when all was ready, the steel ball disappeared under the surface of the water.
The divers felt as if they were going down steps as they passed through warm and cold layers of water. In time, the temperature dropped to freezing-point and the men shivered inside the ball. They kept in touch with the mother ship by telephone describing how they felt. Then, at a depth of 3000 feet, the telephone stopped working and they were quite cut off from the outside world. All went well until some four hours later at 30,000 feet, the men were startled by a loud, cracking noise: even the smallest hole in the ball would have meant instant death. Luckily, though, it was only one of the outer windows that had broken. Soon afterwards, the bathyscaphe touched the soft ocean floor raising a big cloud of "dust" made up of small, dead sea-creatures. Here, powerful lights lit up the dark water and the men were surprised to see fish swimming just above them quite untroubled by the enormous water-pressure. But they did not dare leave the lights on for long, as the heat from them made the water boil. Quite unexpectedly, the telephone began working again and the faint but clear voices of the officers were heard on the mother ship seven miles away. After a stay of thirty minutes the men began their journey up, arriving three hours later, cold and wet through, but none the worse for their experience." (Written by an Unknown Author.)
THANK YOU IN ADVANCE FOR READING!!