The Kingman Comprehension Series: Advanced Level 8

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: Jul 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9781543774726

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

Daddy-Long-Legs

Rip Van Winkle

The Arrow and the Song

Tarzan and the Golden Lion

Peter Pan

A Daughter of the Samurai

A Christmas Carol

Journey to the Centre of the Earth

To Build a Fire

Treasure Island

The Falling Star (The War of the Worlds)

The Big Four

Hope

The Great Gatsby

The Painted Veil

Les Misérables

The Time Machine

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

The Open Window

Search for Mr. Hyde

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 among themselves.

Daddy-Long-Legs

Jean Webster

When I came to the house on Madison Avenue it looked so big and brown and forbidding that I didn’t dare go in, so I walked around the block to get up my courage. But I needn’t have been a bit afraid; your butler is such a nice, fatherly old man that he made me feel at home at once. Is this Miss Abbott? he said to me, and I said, Yes, so I didn’t have to ask for Mr. Smith after all. He told me to wait in the drawing-room. It was a very somber, magnificent, man’s sort of room. I sat down on the edge of a big upholstered chair and kept saying to myself:

I’m going to see Daddy-Long-Legs! I’m going to see Daddy-Long-Legs!

Then presently the man came back and asked me please to step up to the library. I was so excited that really and truly my feet would hardly take me up. Outside the door he turned and whispered, He’s been very ill, Miss. This is the first day he’s been allowed to sit up. You’ll not stay long enough to excite him? I knew from the way he said it that he loved you—and I think he’s an old dear!

Then he knocked and said, Miss Abbott, and I went in and the door closed behind me.

It was so dim coming in from the brightly lighted hall that for a moment I could scarcely make out anything; then I saw a big easy chair before the fire and a shining tea table with a smaller chair beside it. And I realized that a man was sitting in the big chair propped up by pillows with a rug over his knees. Before I could stop him he rose—sort of shakily—and steadied himself by the back of the chair and just looked at me without a word. And then—and then—I saw it was you! But even with that I didn’t understand. I thought Daddy had had you come there to meet me for a surprise.

Then you laughed and held out your hand and said, Dear little Judy, couldn’t you guess that I was Daddy-Long-Legs?

In an instant it flashed over me. Oh, but I have been stupid! A hundred little things might have told me, if I had had any wits. I wouldn’t make a very