Unit 4 : Gifts of Youth Reading Comprehension

It is said that youth is the nicest time of one's life. As a young person you are fit, strong and have enough energy to face problems. In fact you do not think about any problems, but look forward to every day in which you may try something new and challenging, and people around you tend to tolerate your faults because of your lack of experience.

When speaking about young people we should be aware of the fact that there are two different groups of young people: teenagers (between 13 to 19 years old) and those between twenty and thirty. Both groups have something in common, but there are also differences between them.

Teenagers are a special group. They are not children anymore, yet neither are they adults. They are strongly influenced by their friends as well as mass media, reasonably by their parents and partly by their teachers, but there are also youth culture influences that may be important.

As teenagers grow up, they interact with people outside their homes, each becoming an individual person with his/her own ideas. Teenagers want to live independently and oppose the older generation; so they often have conflicts with their parents and teachers. Most of them attend secondary schools and prepare themselves for their future profession. They spend most of their time at school or studying for the following school day. In their leisure time they like getting together with friends, listening to music, playing computer games and going to parties. Most of them live with their parents, have to help around the house and are given some pocket money to spend on cassettes, cosmetics and small luxuries. Those teenagers who want their own money try to find a part-time job, especially during school holidays. Working in the afternoons or at weekends could be very useful since it may help them to prepare for their future (adulthood) and get much more life experience.

Some teenagers, especially in the USA but also in other European countries, leave their family at the age of eighteen and live with their friends in rented flats. Their parents usually do not object because they see that living on one's own may help young people become responsible and mature, and enable them to get a strong personality. Some people say it is better than any parental advice.

COMPRHENSION QUESTIONS: (10 marks)

A. Are these statements True or False? Justify your answer: (2 pts) 1. The two groups of young people have similarities and differences. 2. All American teenagers live with their parents.B. Answer the following questions about the text: (3 pts) 1. Why are teenagers a special group? 2. What do young people need money for? 3. Do parents approve of their young children's living on their own? JustifyC. Complete the following sentences from the text: (2 pts) 1. Adults are tolerant towards teenagers because ……………………………………………………………… 2. Teenagers are affected more by ………………………………………… than by their parents or teachers.D. What do these words refer to in the text: (1 pt) 1. Those (paragraph 2): ……………………. ● 2. It (paragraph 4): ……………………….. E. Find in the text word or expressions that mean the same as: (2 pts) 1. Mistakes (paragraph 1): _______________ 2. Conscious (paragraph 2): _______________ 3. Freely (paragraph 4): _______________ 4. Oppose (paragraph 5): _______________

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1- Some adults and parents blame today’s generation, saying that they want the fruits of life (job, marriage…) the easy way and without effort, and that they are reluctant, rebels, disrespectful, disobedient, terrible and good for nothing…The question is: How would you react to this claim? Is it really true? (Be honest and speak the truth )2- Do you feel there is some kind of generation gap between you (as teenagers) and your parents? If yes, can you give any examples for that? … How can both parents and their children, who are no longer kids, bridge that gap?2- To what extent should you, as teenagers, be open to, interact with and get influenced by the different world cultures – whose main window is mass media? …. 3- Don’t you think that your parents as well as people who are older than you are wiser and much more aware of life secrets, traps and fruits thanks to the so many experiences in life that they went through with time and social relationships? If you think so, to what extent? 4- Which is better: to be sociable, open-minded and out-going … or to just keep enclosed to oneself, avoid making new friends in order to be safe from the evil people who can betray you and also in order to depending on oneself only. Say why. (= justify your choice!)

Open discussion: (To call it a day! )