The Kingman Comprehension Series: Intermediate Level 7

By Dr. Alice Kingman and Jazzy Barry

About the Series

The Kingman Comprehension Series aims to enhance students’ essential reading skills and abilities to exercise critical judgment to help improve progressively their understanding of written texts.

A traditional and contemporary approach is used by the author with questions set in the formats of:
– Filling in the blanks
– Underlining the correct answers
– Multiple choice questions
– True or false questions
– Matching
– Drawing inferences
– Open-ended questions and
– Sequencing

Suggested answers to the questions are provided at the back of the book.

The series comprises six books catering to the levels and needs of the targeted students:

Elementary Level – Book 3 (for students eight to nine years old)
– Book 4 (for students nine to ten year old)
Intermediate Level – Book 5 (for students ten to eleven year old)
– Book 6 (for students eleven to twelve year old)
Advanced Level – Book 7 (for students twelve to thirteen year old)
– Book 8 (for students thirteen to fourteen year old)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Singapore
• Release date: Jun 27, 2023
• ISBN: 9781543774535

Dr. Alice Kingman

Having taught English since 1976, Dr. Alice Kingman is an experienced English language teacher who is now director of her own English tutorial centre and teacher of the Kowloon International Baptist Church English Class. Dr. Kingman attained her Bachelor’s Degree in the United States and her Certificate of Education, Master’s Degree and PhD. Degree in Education at the University of Hong Kong.

Book preview

Copyright © 2023 by Dr. Alice Kingman.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

www.partridgepublishing.com/singapore

Contents

Acknowledgements

The American Diary of a Japanese Girl

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

The Duel

Gulliver’s Travels Part 3, Chapter 1

The Basket of Plumbs

The Wind in the Willows

Heidi

The Swiss Family Robinson

The Elephant Man

A Little Princess

The Pearl

The Call of the Wild

Be a Friend

The Phantom of the Opera

Anne of Green Gables

The Interlopers

The Gift of the Magi

Frankenstein

The Jungle Book

The Tell-Tale Heart

Acknowledgements

First, I would like to thank Jazzy, the illustrator of the Kingman Comprehension Series, for her beautiful artistic drawings which bring every story she has worked on to life.

My great appreciation is also to be extended to my two daughters, Stephanie and Audrey, who helped me from the very beginning in the typing and formatting of questions for every reading passage.

A big thank you to my beloved husband, Matt, for his continuous support, encouragement, and professional assistance in the computerised structuring of the book.

I am also grateful to all my students for their contributions to this project, working on different passages, testing out questions, and providing invaluable feedback.

With no reservation, my heartfelt gratitude goes to my beloved late father, Joseph, who spared no effort in teaching me English since I was seven years old.

Thank you to all other members of my family who spurred me on to take this big step in realising my dreams of becoming an English-language author. I thank them for their love and patience throughout the whole process. Thank you to my wonderful church family as well for their uplifting prayers and support.

Last but not least, I thank God, my Heavenly Father, every day for His unfailing presence and spiritual guidance, without which this project would not have happened.

To Teacher and Parent

In my lifelong career as an English-language teacher, I have often been disappointed and discouraged to find questions set for comprehension passages stressing speedy location of answers or meticulous reproduction of the text. The formulated questions seldom encourage students to read between the lines or genuinely understand the writer’s choice of diction and intention of writing. In other words, students are often deprived of opportunities to think out of the box and explore implied meanings and examine the purpose of sentence structure.

Hence, it has always been my ambition to produce a comprehension series that can sharpen students’ skills in analytical discernment. The Kingman Comprehension Series comprises high-interest selections of different literary genres, from classics to renowned children’s literature, including fables, folk and fairy tales, poems, legends, myths, as well as modern realistic fictions. It is my hope that students will find the works of the outstanding authors in the books not only enjoyable to work on but also interesting enough to spark further independent reading amongst themselves.

The American Diary of a Japanese Girl

Yone Noguchi

I felt thirsty when I reached home. Before I pulled a bucket from the well, I peeped down into it. The moonbeams were beautifully stealing in the waters.

My tortoise-shell comb from my head dropped into the well.

The waters from far down smiled, heartily congratulating me on going to Amerikey.

25th–I thought all day long how I’ll look in ‘Merican dress.

26th–My shoes and six pairs of silk stockings arrived.

How I hoped they were Nippon silk!

One pair’s value is 4 yens.

Extravagance! How dear!

I hardly see any bit of reason against bare feet.

Well, of course, it depends on how they are shaped.

A Japanese girl’s feet are a sweet little piece. Their flatness and archlessness manifest their pathetic womanliness.

Feet tell as much as palms.

I have taken the same laborious care with my feet as with my hands. Now they have to retire into the heavy constrained shoes of America.

It’s not so bad, however, to slip one’s feet into gorgeous silk like that.

My shoes are of superior shape. They have a small high heel.

I’m glad they make me much taller.

A bamboo I set some three Summers ago cast its unusually melancholy shadow on the round paper window of my room, and whispered, Sara! Sara! Sara!

It sounded to me like a pallid voice of sayonara.

(By the way, the profuse tips of my bamboo are like the ostrich plumes of my new American hat.)

Sayonara never sounded before more sad, more thrilling.

My good-bye to home sweet home amid the camellias and white chrysanthemums is within ten days. The steamer Belgic leaves Yokohama on the sixth of next month. My beloved uncle is chaperon during my American journey.

27th–I scissored out the pictures from the ‘Merican magazines.

(The magazines were all tired-looking back numbers. New ones are serviceable in their own home. Forgotten old actors stray into the villages for an inglorious tour. So it is with