Unit 8: Celebrations - Reading

Exercise 1: Read the passage carefully, then choose the correct answer. THANKSGIVING Thanksgiving is celebrated in the US on the fourth Thursday in November. For many Americans it is the most important holiday apart from Christmas. Schools, offices and most businesses close for Thanksgiving, and many people make the whole weekend a vacation. Thanksgiving is associated with the time when Europeans first came to North America. In 1620 the ship the Mayflowers arrived, bringing about 150 people who today are usually called Pilgrims. They arrived at the beginning of a very hard winter and could not find enough to eat, so many of them died. But in the following summer Native Americans showed them what foods were safe to eat, so that they could save food for the next winter. They held a big celebration to thank God and the Native Americans for the fact that they had survived. Today people celebrate Thanksgiving to remember these early days. The most important part of the celebration is a traditional dinner with foods that come from North America. The meal includes turkey, sweet potatoes (also called yams) and cranberries, which are made into a kind of sauce or jelly. The turkey is filled with stuffing or dressing, and many families have their own special recipe. Dessert is pumpkin made into a pie. On Thanksgiving there are special television programs and sports events. In New York there is the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, when a long line of people wearing fancy costumes march through the streets with large balloons in- the shape of imaginary characters. Thanksgiving is considered the beginning of the Christmas period, and the next day many people go out to shop for Christmas presents.

Exercise 2: Choose the word or phrase (A, B, C or D) that best fits the blank space in the following passage. SPRING FESTIVALS From (6) _______ times people have celebrated the end of winter and the new life that spring brings. One of the most important Christian festivals is Easter, (7) _______ Christians remember the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Easter, however, is not the (8) _______ spring festival. In Sweden, people celebrate the end of the winter by making (9) _______ bonfires. Fire also plays an important part in the Hindu festival of Holi. In some villages children are (10) _______ round bonfires by their mothers to protect them (11) _______ danger in the coming year. Buddhists in Thailand soak (12) _______ in water when celebrating their New Year, which (13) _______ in the middle of April. In Antigua in Guatemala they carpet the streets with flowers. Chinese spring parades are (14) _______ colourful, but (15) _______ flowers they have large dragon puppets which dance in the streets.