Unit 3: Adventure and The Hero’s Journey
Before You Read
Discuss the following questions with a partner or in a group.
- What do you know about political parties in the US?
- What are the political parties in your country, if your country has them?
- How do people decide which party to support or follow?
- Do people always support a party 100% of the time?
- Should political parties exist?
- What does right / left mean in politics? What ideas do they represent in the US? In your country?
- If you could make your own political party, what would be some ideas you would want to focus on in your party?
- Skim the next reading. What do you think is the author’s purpose of the text: to inform, entertain, or to persuade? How will that affect the way you take notes on the reading?
Building Vocabulary
For this exercise, find the word in the paragraph given. Use the synonyms and definitions to help. You may want to use Hypothes.is to see the paragraph numbers in the website.
- P3: cut (v) ______________________________________________________
- P4: fingers and toes (n) _________________________________________________
- P4: injured by cutting (v) ________________________________________________
- P5: in a clear way (adv) _________________________________________________
- P5: cover widely (v) ____________________________________________________
- P6: argument between two groups (n) ___________________________________
- P6: write (v) ___________________________________________________________
- P6: a record of someone’s death, usually in a newspaper (n) _______________
- P7: fight (n) ____________________________________________________________
- P7: reduce the strength, water down (v) _________________________________
- P7: support (v) (two answers) ___________________________________________
- P8: single number (n) __________________________________________________
- P9: list of people to vote for (n) ________________________________________
- P9: less than occasional (adj) ___________________________________________
- P9: old, obsolete (adj) __________________________________________________
- P10: problem, dilemma (n) _______________________________________________
Vocabulary in Context
There are some interesting phrases in this article. Find or guess the meaning of the words in bold.
- Tired from their journeys, many travelers took him up on the seemingly friendly offer.
- The tea party had their chance to offer a viable long-term political alternative to voters on the right. But the wheels of that movement have fallen off this year.
- In June, John Aziz wrote in The Week that Dave Brat’s win over Eric Cantor in Virginia was not a victory for the tea party; it was a “death rattle.”
- …most conservative eyes shifted to Mississippi to see how the main event of the tea party/Republican establishment feud would pan out a couple of weeks ago.
- When conservatives in Mississippi, and many other places, cast their votes in November’s general election, they’ll likely feel uncomfortably stretched when backing a Republican
candidate they don’t fully endorse. - …we do need more choices than the sporadic maverick third party presidential candidate.
Go to the following link for the reading: https://noogatoday.6amcity.com/procrustean-beds-and-the-problem-with-a-two-party-political-system/
Then come back to answer the questions below.
Comprehension Questions
Answer the following questions according to the article.
- What does the author mention is one of the biggest problems of having a two-party system?
- What do we know about the “tea party” from this article?
- What happened to the remaining tea party members and supporters?
- What does it mean when the author says that Kristen Day “sacrifices her ideological extremities”?
- According to the author, who do people in the US usually vote for?
CEFR Level: CEF Level B2
