Listening & Reading Comprehension Practice

Get some reading comprehension practice (and practice listening comprehension as well!) with one or both of these TED talks about solving energy and other environmental problems.

Michael Pawlyn, in Using Nature’s Genius in Architecture, proposes using nature’s design strategies to develop sustainable human systems.

"If we could learn to make things and do things the way nature does, we could achieve factor 10, factor 100, maybe even factor 1,000 savings in resource and energy use."

He gives a number of fascinating examples of natural processes we can learn from.

In A Clean Energy Proposal, Jennifer Granholm suggests a better way to create ‘clean’ energy (and jobs) in the U.S. by encouraging competition between states rather than forcing one national energy policy on the whole nation.

To download a pdf of this exercise instead of doing the interactive practice below, right-click here.

These TED talks suggest a lot of ways to produce or save energy, reduce global warming, and resolve some other pressing environmental problems. Before watching them, think for a moment about the strategies you expect them to mention.

What are some problems with our current situation?
What solutions have you already heard?
Which do you think will work best?

(Thinking about what you already know about a topic will help you understand and remember it better. It's an important reading comprehension strategy.)

Then watch and listen for better ideas-- and also think about potential drawbacks (problems) their proposals might have.

Try listening to each talk (or reading it-- see the "Interactive transcript just below the video) in English first, to see how much you can understand. Answer these questions. (It’s OK to look back at the transcript-- this is not a test of your memory.)

After taking the quiz and checking your answers, you can always read it or watch it with subtitles in your primary language if you want.

Reading Comprehension Practice Questions

Choose the best answer for each question, then check your answer. You can try again if your first answer was wrong.

The first 6 questions are from the Nature’s Genius talk, the last 6 are from the Clean Energy Proposal.

After each question, return to the top and click on the arrow for the next question, or choose "Show all questions" to see all 12 at once. Scroll back after each question.

(For questions 1 and 10, you must choose all the correct check marks before your answer is complete. If it says "4/5", go back and change the check marks until it says "5/5," which means all 5 are correct.)

Which of these are the three big changes Michael Pawlenty says people need to make?
1. Use resources more efficiently.
2. Base the economy on solar energy rather than fossil fuels like gasoline and coal.
3. Make good jobs for more people.
4. Recycle and reuse rather than just disposing of industry wastes.
5. Use natural designs to make buildings more beautiful.
Pawlyn calls the Eden Project an example of how bio-mimicry can allow “radical increases in resource efficiency.” ‘Radical’ can have several meanings.Here it means:
1. from the roots
2. basic
3. extreme left-wing-- the opposite of conservative
4. big enough to change the whole nature of the activity
The Cardboard to Caviar Project is NOT an example of
1. waste recycling
2. a linear system
3. a closed-loop system
4. making a profit from materials that would usually be thrown away in landfills.
Pawlyn says that when Julius Caesar went to North Africa,
1. he admired the cedar trees on the coast.
2. he cut down trees and made the Sahara a desert.
3. he found forests in areas that are now desert.
4. he planted trees in the Sahara.
There is a beetle in Namibia that survives in the desert by drinking water that condenses on its shell at night.
1. True
2. False
Pawlyn discusses some ways to use the salts that would crystallize out of the seawater that they use in the Sahara Forests project. Which of these uses does he NOT suggest:
1. sodium chloride for building blocks
2. sodium chloride to add flavor to the maintenance crew’s meals
3. lithium for batteries
4. phosphates for fertilizers
Jennifer Granholm calls herself a (political) scientist. She shared “some empirical data from my lab.” What is her lab?
1. The Electrolux Lab in Greenville
2. .The Center for Science in Michigan
3. the political processes of democracy
4. the National Institute of Health
What do you think ‘empirical’ in the question above means? (Use the context if you don’t already have an idea.)
1. job-related
2. current or recent
3. practical, usable
4. theoretical
Why did Electrolux refuse the governor’s offer?
1. She didn’t offer enough incentives.
2. They could pay much lower wages in Mexico than in Michigan.
3. Union officials would not cooperate with them.
4. They wanted to stop making refrigerators.
Why does she say the “Race to the Top” for education might be a good model for creating more clean energy jobs? Mark all the answers she gives.
1. It’s a good example of federalism. (Each state choosing its own best way to meet the common goal instead of all the decisions being made by the national government in Washington, D.C. and imposed on all the states.)
2. The financial incentives will appeal enough to state legislators that they will make an effort ot work together.
3. C. Everyone loves a competition; state legislators will be motivated to beat other states.
4. D. Each state can choose the specialization that suits its own area and needs.
5. E. Both education and clean-energy jobs are popular issues that almost everyone supports.
6. F. Democrats disagree with Republicans on almost every issue.
What does Granholm mean by “Republican and Democratic governors love to cut ribbons”?
1. There’s a big political advantage in being the first to make the cuts.
2. They want to be seen as winners, like the first runner that breaks the ribbon at the finish line of a race.
3. They love to be seen providing new jobs. (The ribbon-cutting refers to an American custom of having public officials participate in the opening of new factories, etc.)
What does Granholm mean by asking people at TED to “go around Congress”?
1. Go around to different Congressmen and women and try to explain what a great idea a Clean Energy Race to the Top would be.
2. Congress is just going around in circles anyway.
3. Bypass Congress by getting state governors together at a meeting to agree on a Clean Energy Race to the Top.
4. Offer private incentive money to the states for a Clean Energy Race to the Top without waiting for Congress to act.

How did you do? Practicing your English reading comprehension skills (even just by thinking about what you are reading, making predictions, and asking yourself questions) should help you get more from your reading. It will improve your English vocabulary as well.

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