ENGLISH LANGUAGE
HOLIDAY WORK (NOV.-DEC. 2007)
(for class 3J1)

Name: ………………………………………………………………………………. 3J1


Write your answers on this assignment booklet.
Pass up your answers to your Senior 1 English Language teacher in 2008 within the first week of schooling in January.


Part 1:
Read this passage carefully and then answer the questions that follow:

Our first daughter, Shee Fee, seemed to have understood baby development when she was a tiny tot. She sat up at six months, and by the time she was nine months old she had learned to get around by rolling over. That turned into crawling pretty quickly, and by ten months she was making tracks on her hands and knees.

"She turned one in April, and we thought for sure she'd start walking soon," my wife told her friends, "but she crawled for a few months. She crawled on the cement, on the grass, everything. Nothing seemed to bother her �"--------- and she could move pretty fast."






By fifteen or sixteen months Shee Fee made an easy transition from crawling to walking, starting by holding onto furniture or mom’s or dad's hand. But our next daughter, Mee Ling, was rather different. "Mee Ling sat up at about six months, just like her big sister," said my wife. "But she was very interested in building with blocks. She'd sit for a long time making towers and things and always had something in her hands."

Even though Mee Ling could roll over, she didn't do it much. When she got interested in moving around, my wife said, "she'd pull up her knees, move her feet and scoot her bum forward. That way she could still carry things in her hands."

We tried to put Mee Ling down on her stomach in a crawling position, but she'd just use her hands to push herself into a sitting position and go right back to bum-scooting. The only time she crawled was when she went up the stairs.

All young children are really different. There are just as many different crawling styles as there are babies. Consider, for example, the "commando crawl," where the baby puts his elbows on the floor and keeps his legs flat as he drags himself forward as though under enemy fire; the backward crawl which, to the baby's total frustration, often takes him where he doesn't want to go; the "push up" crawl, where the baby has his hands and feet on the ground and his bum up in the air; the "pacer crawl," where the baby moves first his left arm and leg forward, then his right, instead of alternate arms and legs.

And then, of course, there are babies like Mee Ling who don't crawl at all.

Is not crawling unusual ? Some parents say their babies just don't bother to crawl. Mr. Loh, our friend, recalls that none of his children motored around on their hands and knees. Instead, each one mastered walking at an early age -------- around nine or ten months. Other babies do take up crawling eventually, but may be happy to just sit until age one or so. Unless your baby doesn't seem at all interested in becoming mobile after his or her first birthday, you might want to talk to the doctor.

What is important is that babies get plenty of opportunity to try crawling (or rolling or cruising) if they want to. A 1998 study by Case Western Reserve University in America found that babies who spent a lot of time in baby walkers were more likely to experience what researcher Carol Siegel called "an exploration deficit." These children scored lower on tests of physical and mental development. "Infants often spend too much time confined to strollers, baby seats and walkers. This restricts the time available for free exploration, which is important for mental development," said Siegel.

Do recognize that your increasingly mobile baby is now capable of getting into dangerous territory. In the few minutes that it takes you to run to the bathroom, your baby can hustle across the room to chew on a lamp cord or taste the leaves of a poisonous plant. Get down on the floor and look at each room from your child's point of view, removing hazards as you go, and make a habit of taking him with you when you leave a room.

If your baby isn't thrilled about hanging out on the floor while everyone else is walking around or sitting on the couch, try getting some enticing toys and placing them just beyond his or her reach.

Dress your tot in good crawling clothes. Ordinary cotton pants or overalls are good because they keep baby's legs protected while leaving him or her relatively unencumbered.



Our youngest daughter, Kwee Fong, likes to go on the carpet, but at seven months, she's not crawling yet. While we don't want to rush her, we are looking forward to discovering what her unique approach to getting around will be.

1 At what age was Shee Fee when she started crawling ?

……………………………………………………………………………………


2 How did Mee Ling move about by means of bum-scooting ?

……………………………………………………………………………………..


3 Describe two styles of baby crawling.

………………………………………………………………………………………


4 Which type of babies face the problem of ‘exploration deficit’ ?

……………………………………………………………………………………….


5 What should parents do if their baby becomes increasingly mobile ?

…………………………………………………………………………………………..


Part 2:
Language forms and functions

Mun Leng is discussing with Yoong Soon the worsening crime rates in the society.

1 To inform:

Mun Leng: As I was walking to the Giant Supermarket last night,

………………………………………………………………………..………….
(handbag…….. snatched…..motorcyclist)

2 To express shock:

Yoong Soon: …………………………………………………………………..….…………
(……… frightening…………….)


3 To express relief:

Mun Leng: Fortunately,

………………………………………………………….………………………………..
(twenty ringgit……….no IC)

4 To enquire:


Yoong Soon: …………………………………………………………………………….
(….recognise ….. snatch-thief……)

5 To describe:

Mun Leng: Although it was not bright enough, ………………………………………………………………………………………………..
(….. small …… dark…….)


Part 3:
For each blank, fill in the correct form of the word given in brackets.

1 Chai Hong asked me ….............. (polite) whether I could lend her my mobile phone.

2 Being poor is bad, being ill is even worse, but the …………… (bad) thing that can happen to a person is being sorrowful all the time.

3 A low salary of course gives little ………… (satisfy) to any employee.

4 He has been …………. (work) as an insurance agent for twenty years.

5 The …………. (likely) of writing two long compositions which are exactly the same by two students is very small indeed.


Part 4: Error identification

Underline the error in each of the following sentences and write its correction above or below the wrong word.

1 “Switched on the air-conditioner please, Miss Chin, it’s too warm,” said the chief clerk.





2 Chee Hang could not furthered his education overseas because his father was only a labourer.

3 Despite his intelligent, he failed to solve the puzzle.

4 The flight from Kuala Lumpur to Hong Kong take only three and half hours.

5 Many students are not learning English properly because they think it is a foreign languages and is not useful in their daily work.


Part 5: Cloze text
Fill in each blank of this passage with a suitable word:

One morning I went to a park nearby for jogging. It was still early, so the park was very ……1……...
While I ……..2………. jogging, I suddenly heard a scream. I immediately went to see what had …….3……. I saw a snatch-thief snatching a ………4……… handbag. ………..5……… snatch-thief was holding a dagger in his hand.
……..6……… nobody came to help her. Quickly, the snatch-thief ………7……… away after snatching the handbag. Without ……..8………, I called the police with my handphone.
Soon ……..9…….. policemen arrived. I showed them the direction of escape of the snatch-thief. The two policemen hurriedly went after the thief and …….10…… arrested him.

Part 6: Short composition (about 200 words)
How did you spend your year-end long school vacation ?








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