Answers to Activities C-4-2, C-4-3, C-4-4, C-4-5
Activity C-4-2
For most people, there has been a moment in their lives when they have changed
their attitude. Recently, I became a father and I experienced a change in my attitude
toward my parents. Before becoming a father, I was the son of my parents. My parents
took care of me and I didn’t think too much about my parents’ love because I thought it
was the usual thing. After I became a father, I realized how difficult it is to take care of
a baby, so I have come to admire my parents and their generation. In my parents’
generation, there were no gas stoves, microwaves, dishwashers, dryers, and other
electric appliances to help women do the housework. Women had to wash clothes by hand
and spent a lot of time cooking and cleaning. Also, in my country it was taboo for the man
to help the woman with housework and with taking care of the baby. But nowadays, this
custom has changed. In my case, I help my wife do the housework and take care of the
baby. The conditions under which my parents’ generation took care of children were
worse than now, but they did well. So, I have come to admire my parents and their
generation.
- Inho Hong
Activity C-4-3
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The teacher who did the most to encourage me was, as it happens, my aunt.
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She was Myrtle C. Manigault, the wife of my mother’s brother Bill, when she
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taught me in second grade at all-black Sumner School in Camden, New Jersey.
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Now she is Mrs. Myrtle M. Stratton, retired and residing in Haddonfield, New
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Jersey.
2. simple past – telling a story
3. the writer switches to the simple present in the last sentence, because she is
talking about her aunt in the present. The time word ‘now’ indicates the present.
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During my childhood and youth, Aunt Myrtle encouraged me to develop
every aspect of my potential, without regard for what was considered practical or
possible for black females. I liked to sing; she listened to my voice and pronounced
it good. I couldn’t dance; she taught me the basic jitterbug steps. She took me to
the theater--not just children’s theater but adult comedies and dramas—and her
faith that I could appreciate adult plays was not disappointed.
Aunt Myrtle also took down books from her extensive library and shared
them with me. We had books at home, but they were all serious classics. Even as a
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child I had a strong bent towards humor, and I will never forget the joy of
discovering Don Marquis’s Archy & Mehitabel through her.
Most important, perhaps, Aunt Myrtle provided my first opportunity to
write for publication. A writer herself for one of the black newspapers, the
Philadelphia edition of the Pittsburgh Courier, she suggested my name to the
editor as a “youth columnist.” My column, begun at age fourteen, was supposed to
cover teenage social activities—and it did—but it also gave me the latitude to
write on many other subjects as well as the habit of gathering material, the
discipline of meeting deadlines, and, after college graduation six years later, a
solid portfolio of published material that carried my byline and was my passport to
a series of writing jobs.
4. the main tense used is the simple past, because the writer is telling her story
of when she was young. The time signal at the beginning of the 3rd paragraph on
line 6 are the words ‘during my childhood.’
5. on line 14 she switches to the simple future tense, because she wants to let us
know that this is still true in the future.
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Today Aunt Myrtle, independently and through her organization (she is a
founding member of The Links, Inc.), is still an ardent booster of culture and of
her “favorite niece.” She reads omnivorously, attends writers’ readings, persuades
her clubs to support artists, and never lets me succumb to discouragement for
very long. As I told her theater club recently, she is “as brilliant and beautiful and
tough as a diamond.” And, like a diamond, she has reflected a bright, multifaceted
image of possibilities to every pupil who has crossed her path.
6. the main tense of this paragraph is the is the simple present, because the
writer is talking about what her aunt does ‘today.’
7. on line 29 the writer talks about an event that happened in the recent past. She
uses the time signal ‘recently.’
Activity C-4-4
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One reason people lie is to achieve personal power. Achieving personal power
is helpful for someone who pretends to be more confident than he really is. For
example, one of my friends threw a party at his house last month. He asked me to
come to his party and bring a date. However, I didn’t have a girlfriend. One of my
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other friends, who had a date to go to the party with, asked me about my date. I
didn’t want to be embarrassed, so I claimed that I had a lot of work to do. I said I
could easily find a date even better than his if I wanted to. I also told him that
his date was ugly. I achieved power to help me feel confident; however, I
embarrassed my friend and his date. Although this lie helped me at the time, since
then it has made me look down on myself.
-Mo Fung (Jackie) Chan
line 1 and 2: simple present tense; this indicates a general truth
line 3 through 9: simple past tense; this indicates a story told about the past
line 10: present perfect; this indicates an event that started in the past and continues in
the present
Activity C-4-5
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It was hard to choose a suitable school when I applied to some American
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universities last year. I didn’t understand anything about America before I came
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here. Because I had never been to the United States at that time, all the
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information about schools came from the news, magazines, some institutes, and my
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friends. I got I-20 forms from about eight schools, but I finally decided to come
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to this one. There were several reasons I chose the University of New Orleans.
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The first reason was financial. Because of my limited resources, I had to choose a
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school that is fairly inexpensive. That meant I couldn’t choose a private school or
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even most states’ public universities. This school was not too expensive so it fit my
10 requirement. The second factor was the location of the school. Because I am used
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to living in a big city, I couldn’t bear the life of a small town. I would rather see
12 crowds and buildings instead of cattle and grassland. Although New Orleans isn’t a
13 really big city like New York, there are about one million people living in the
14 metropolitan area. Additionally, New Orleans is famous for its tourism, which is
15 very attractive to me.
-Hsin-Chuan Chen
line 1: the applying occurs at the same time as the choosing, so the verb tense of the
independent clause prevails.
line 2: simple past tense because we are telling a story in the past and there is no
reason to switch tense
line 3: past perfect, because the past action of ‘had never been’ refers to a point in
the past: ‘at that time’ in the past, not the present.
line 5 and line 7: simple past because we are continuing the story line of the past.
line 9: simple past form of fit is ‘fit’ not ‘fitted’
line 14: you are talking about New Orleans in the present, you don’t have to switch
tense, keep the present.