Exercise I

Fill in the missing words into the gaps. Mind the first two words in each task.

1) strong – stronger; good – _______________ 2) coldest – colder; happiest – _______________ 3) nice – nicer; bad – _______________ 4) angry – angrier; much – _______________ 5) more boring – boring; sunnier – _______________ 6) more interesting – most interesting; worse – _______________ 7) hard – hardest; new – _______________ most expensive – expensive; cleanest – _______________ 9) fast – fastest; old – _______________ 10) shortest – short; most difficult – _______________

Exercise II

Put in the adjective from the first sentences into the second sentence in its correct form (comparative or superlative).Example: I have a fast car, but my friend has a ______ car.Answer: I have a fast car, but my friend has a faster car.

1) My father is heavy. My uncle is much __________ than my father. 2) The test in Geography was easy, but the test in Biology was _____________ . 3) Florida is sunny. Do you know the ____________ place in the USA? 4) Stan is a successful sportsman, but his sister is _____________ than Stan. 5) My mother has a soft voice, but my teacher’s voice is ___________ than my mother’s. 6) Amy has a beautiful baby, but my daughter has the __________ baby on earth. 7) I live in a large family, but my grandfather lived in a _____________ family. We have only little time for this exercise, but in the examination we’ll have even _____________ time. 9) Lucy is clever, but Carol is _____________ than Lucy. 10) Have you visited the old castle? It was the ____________ castle we visited during our holidays.

Exercise III
Fill in the missing words into the gaps.

- positive
- comparative
- superlative

A – Comparison with -er/-est

clean – cleaner – (the) cleanest

We use -er/-est with the following adjectives:

1) adjectives with one syllable

2) adjectives with two syllables and the following endings:

2 – 1) adjectives with two syllables, ending in -y

2 – 2) adjectives with two syllables, ending in -er

2 – 3) adjectives with two syllables, ending in -le

2 – 4) adjectives with two syllables, ending in -ow

Spelling of the adjectives using the endings -er/-est

B – Comparison with more – most

difficult – more difficult – (the) most difficult

all adjectives with more than one syllable (except some adjectives with two syllables – see
2 – 1 to 2 – 4)

C – Irregular adjectives

D – Special adjectives

Some ajdectives have two possible forms of comparison.

Difference in meaning with adjectives:

Topic #1 - If I Turned into an Animal: If you had to turn into a different animal for a single day, what animal would you choose to become? Why did you choose that animal? What would do when you became that animal, and where would you go? How do you think you would feel when you were that animal? How would people treat you? How would other animals and people treat you?

Topic #2 – I’m an Expert: Everyone is great at something – write about what you do best. It could be a hobby, a sport, reading, playing chess, or anything else you excel at.

Topic #3 – Goodbye, My Shoes. Your shoes has met an untimely death and you’ve been asked to write a few words in its honor. Write a eulogy for your shoes, remembering the good times and the bad.

*eulogy – a speech or writing in praise of a person or thing, esp. a set oration in honor of a deceased person (thing for your topic).

River
by Miki

River
Clear, wonderful
Slapping, whirling, flowing
The river is cold.
Water

Nature
by Khaled

Nature
Beautiful, pure
Refreshing, enjoying, relaxing
Nature is healthy.
Fun

Dove
by Min

Dove
Active, free
Flying, sitting, crying
A dove is free.
Bird

Eel
by Miki

Eel
Greasy, long
Winding, swimming, moving
An eel is strange.
Fish

2. Now, it’s your turn to write your own cinquain poem about any topic of your choice. Follow this structural form:

Line 1: 1 NOUN-A
Line 2: 2 related ADJECTIVES
Line 3: 3 descriptive GERUNDS (verb + -ing)
Line 4: 1 complete, related SENTENCE
Line 5: 1 NOUN-B (a synonym of NOUN-A)

You may also work on this template as your basis:

Title of Poem
Author’s Name

_________________
_____________, ___________
_______________, ______________, _______________
____________________________________________________ .
__________________

Publish your cinquain poem at your blogsite.

Write a paragraph about this topic.  You may have your own title if you wish.

Publish this in your blog site.

Thank you.

Here are the steps in making your own blog:

1. Log on to www.blogger.com. You may just click the link in the blogroll (below Google search).

2. Click CREATE YOUR BLOG NOW.

3. You need your e-mail address to create an account. Follow the following steps:

1. Create a Google account (jot down the e-mail add and password that you’ll enter here)

2. Name Blog

3. Choose Template

4. Click POST to enter your output (poem, essay, etc.)

5. Let me know your blog site ( e.g. socspace.blogspot.com).

This was what we discussed about the kinds of essay. Please click VIEW if you wish to see the presentation.

There are three faces in the image. What are they?

1. lady

2. old woman

3. man with mustache

1. Can you determine the word that this verse describes?

My first is in fish but not in snail
My second in rabbit but not in tail
My third in up but not in down
My fourth in tiara but not in crown
My fifth in tree you plainly see
My whole a food for you and me

ANSWER: FRUIT

2. Johnny’s mother had three children. The first child was named April. The second child was named May. What was the third child’s name?

ANSWER: JOHNNY

3. You show up for Monday’s class and find that it’s been postponed. It will be held three days after the day before the day after tomorrow. What day should you show up?

ANSWER: FRIDAY

4. Two people who have never seen each other meet at the New York Embassy. They decide to have drinks together in a nearby bar. One of them is the father of the other one’s son. How is this possible?

ANSWER: The people are husband and wife, both blind since birth.

5. What is as big as an elephant but doesn’t weigh anything?

ANSWER: The shadow of an elephant.

It’s not about how beautiful or ugly you are. Or what clothes you wear, what shoes you have on, or what kind of music you listen to. It’s not about if your hair is blonde, red, black, brown, or green. Or if your skin is too light or too dark.

It’s not about what grades you get, how smart you are, how smart everyone else thinks you are, or how smart standardized tests say you are. Or if this teacher likes you, or if this guy/girl likes you. Or what clubs you’re in, or how good you are at “your” sport. It’s not about representing your whole being on a piece of paper and seeing who will “accept the written you”.

But life is about who you love and who you hurt. It’s about who you make happy or unhappy purposefully. It’s about keeping or betraying trust. It’s about friendship, used as sanctity, or as a weapon. It’s about what you say and mean, maybe hurtful, maybe heartening. About starting rumors and contributing to petty gossip. It’s about what judgments you pass and why. And who your judgments are spread to.

It’s about who you’ve ignored with full control and intention. It’s about jealousy, fear, pain, ignorance, and revenge. It’s about carrying inner hate and love, letting it grow and spreading it.

But most of all, it’s about using your life to touch or poison other people’s hearts in such a way that could never occurred alone. Only you choose the way these hearts are affected and those choices are what life is all about.

Questions:

1. What kind of essay is this?

2. What is the essay about?

3. Which paragraph do you like best? Why?

4. For you, what is life all about?

One of the things that strike me as being very “UP Diliman” is the way UPD students can’t seem to stay on the pavement. From every street corner that bounds an unpaved piece of land, one will espy a narrow trail that cuts the corner, or leads from it. Every lawn around the buildings sports at least one of these paths, starting from a point nearest to the IKOT stop and ending at the nearest entry to the building. The trails are beaten on the grass by many pairs of feet wanting to save a fraction of a meter of traveling, no matter that doing so will exact some cost to the shoes, or, to the ubiquitous slippers, especially when the trails are new.

What do these paths say about us, UP students?

One could say that the UP student is enamored with Mathematics and Pythagoras, hence these triangles formed by the pavement and the path. Many among you would disagree.

Others could say that the UP student is naturally countercultural. And the refusal to use the pavement is just one of the myriads of ways to show his defiance of the order of things. This time, many would agree.

Still, others will say that the UP student is the model of today’s youth: they want everything easier, faster, now. The walkable paths appeal to them because they get to their destination faster, and presumably, with less effort. Now that is only partly true, and totally unfair.

These trails weren’t always walkable. No doubt they started as patches of grass, perhaps overgrown. Those who first walked them must have soiled their shoes, stubbed their toes, or had insects biting their legs, all in the immovable belief that the nearest distance between two points is a straight line. They might even have seen snakes cross their paths. But the soiled footwear, sore toes, and itchy legs started to conquer the grass. Other people, seeing the yet faint trail, followed. And as more and more walked the path, the grass gave in and stopped growing altogether, making the path more and more visible, more and more walkable.

The persistence of the paths pays tribute to those UP students who walked them first – the pioneers of the unbeaten tracks: the defiant and curious few who refuse the familiar and comfortable; the out-of-the-box thinkers who solve problems instead of fretting about them; the brave who dare do things differently, and open new opportunities to those who follow.

They say how one behaved in the past would determine how he behaves in the future. And as we leave the University, temporarily or for good, let us call on the pioneering, defiant, and brave spirit that built the paths to guide us in this next phase of our life.

We have been warned time and again. Our new world that they call “adulthood” is one that’s full of compromises, where success is determined more by the ability to belong than by the ability to think, where it is much easier to do as everyone else does. Daily we are bombarded with so much news of despair about the state of our nation, and the apparent, perverse sense of satisfaction our politicians get from vilifying our state of affairs. It is fashionable to migrate to other countries to work in deceptively high-paying jobs like nursing and teaching, forgetting that even at their favored work destinations, nurses and teachers are some of the lowest paid professionals. The lure of high and immediate monetary benefits in some low-end outsourcing jobs has drawn even some of the brightest UP students away from both industry and university teaching to which they would have been better suited.

Like the sidewalks and pavement, these paths are the easiest to take.

But, like the sidewalks and pavement, these paths take longer to traverse, just as individual successes do not always make for national progress. The unceasing critic could get elected, but not get the job done. The immigrant could get his visa, but disappear from our brainpower pool. The highly paid employee would be underutilized for his skills, and pine to get the job he truly wants, but is now out of his reach. And the country, and we, are poorer because of these.

Today, the nation needs brave, defiant pioneers to reverse our nation’s slide to despair. Today, we must call upon the spirit that beat the tracks. Today, we must present an alternative way of doing things.

Do NOT just take courage, for courage is not enough. Instead, be BRAVE! It will take bravery to go against popular wisdom, against the clichéd expectations of family and friends. It will take bravery to gamble your future by staying in the country and try to make a prosperous life here. It might help if for a start, we try to see why our Korean friends are flocking to our country. Why, as many of us line up for immigrant visas in various embassies, they get themselves naturalized and settle here. Do they know something we don’t?

Do NOT just be strong in your convictions, for strength is not enough. Instead, DEFY the pressure to lead a comfortable, but middling life. Let us lead this country from the despair of mediocrity. Let us not seek to do well, but strive to EXCEL in everything that we do. This, so others will see us as a nation of brains of the highest quality, not just of brawn that could be had for cheap.

Take NOT the road less traveled. Rather, MAKE new roads, BLAZE new trails, FIND new routes to your dreams. Unlike the track-beaters in campus who see where they’re going, we may not know how far we can go. But if we are brave, defiant searchers of excellence, we will go far. Explore possibilities, that others may get a similar chance. I have tried it myself. And I’m speaking to you now.

But talk is cheap, they say. And so I put my money where my mouth is. Today, I place myself in the service of the University, if it will have me. I would like to teach, to share knowledge, and perhaps to be an example to new UP students in thinking and striving beyond the limits of the possible. This may only be a small disturbance in the grass. But I hope you’ll come with me, and trample a new path.

Good evening, everyone.

By Mikaela Irene Fudolig

UP Graduation 22 April 2007

The following questions should be answered in your comments:

1. What is your initial reaction or thoughts upon reading her speech?

2. Which part of her speech strikes you most? Why?

3. How does she express patriotism and how will she show it?

Please don’t forget to write your complete name when you post your comment.