To ćwiczenie przeznaczone jest dla uczniów na poziomie upper-intermediate do advanced. Artykuł traktuje o zalegalizowaniu marihuany, i może być bardzo pomocny przy dyskusji na temat narkotyków.

Pytania do tekstu w dwóch wariantach – true/false, oraz wielokrotnego wyboru. W obydwu typach uczniowie powinni umieć wskazać zdanie/zdania w tekście wskazujące na ich odpowiedź, oraz ewentualnie wyeliminować złe odpowiedzi. W niektórych pytaniach droga eliminacji jest jedynym sposobem określenia poprawnej odpowiedzi.

Tekst powinien być przeczytany w domu, ponieważ nawet samo znalezienie odpowiedzi i omówienie ich zajmuje więcej niż 45 minut. Praca z tekstem tutaj jest, powiedziałbym, bardzo intensywna, przy założeniu, że będziemy wymagać uzasadnienia odpowiedzi. Dlatego lepiej jest dać tekst do domu przynajmniej dzień przed omówieniem go. 

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READING COMPREHENSION

Legalising pot, as recommended this weekend’ in a conference resolution of the National Union of Students, is not now as radical a proposal as it might seem. All manner of ‘establishment’ figures have supported similar plans: from a Presidential Commission in the US to the Principal of King’s College, London, who wanted to see the drug taxed and proceeds used for university research. There are, indeed, several unsatisfactory problems created by the present ban on cannabis: the law is widely disregarded and this helps to bring other laws into disrespect; it can only be enforced selectively because of the large number of people who use the drug at home:

it can lead to unnecessary - and possibly illegal - police searches; and it increases friction between the police and minority groups, like framers of the NUS motion. Finally, if drugs such as cigarettes and alcohol are permitted, then why not pot?

The last point is easy to counter: quasi-Government approval for two harmful drugs is no argument for permitting a third. Unlike drink and tobacco, there is still some doubt about the harmful effects of cannabis, but research here is in its early days. Already Columbia University scientists in New York have completed one project, which suggests that the drug could open the door to metabolic diseases, including cancers, by affecting cellular immunity. The team found that white blood cells of cannabis users were 40 per cent less effective in fighting viruses than those of non-cannabis users. Other studies have discovered all manner of side effects including the danger of growing impotency. Any responsible government would hold back in such circumstances; not least because the fad appears to be on the wane. To legalise it now might promote the drug just as its use was beginning to decline.

But if Mr Jenkins wants to maintain his reputation as a reformer, there are useful amendments he could make to the law. Far too many people are still ending up in prison -hundreds every year - merely for using the drug. The last Conservative Government finally recognised a sharp distinction that must be made between users and pushers, and cut the maximum sentence for users from twelve months to six. But is prison necessary at all for users, particularly now that criminologists have demonstrated so starkly the damage that person can cause? In the American state of Oregon, cannabis users are treated like traffic offenders: fined heavily but are never sent to prison. It is right that the big pushers, coining thousands of pounds from their trade, should receive heavy sentences. But the courts must also take note that there are two types of pushers: the professional and the amateur. The latter is often as much a user as a seller in the drug subculture. A community service order, which would allow an amateur pusher a chance to contribute to society, seems a far more appropriate sentence than prison.

Taken from

The Guardian

Ćwiczenie czytania dla uczniów na poziomie upper-intermediate do advanced. Język angielski.: reading_comprehension 33.44 Kb