Answer for phrasal verb

1. Hundreds of people turned up in the rain to see the celebrity.
2. Most of my time is taken away with answering the phone.
3. Don't be put off by the price,a cool $ 20,000.
4. Something funny is going on.
5. I think she made up the whole story!
6. Not many people turned up for the last lecture.
7. Don't worry,you can count on me.

Answer for word collocation

a)an instrument panel
a panel of experts
a control panel
a wooden panel

b) a secret ballot
a secret agent
keep it a secret
meet in secret
the secret of success

c) take control of the situation
it's out of control
the control exchange
the control market

d) a time sheet
a time zone
only time will tell
long time no see
for the time being

e) a child minder
child abuse
child care facilities
a child prodigy
behaving like a child

Answer for word collocation

1. Many small houses and huts were (flooded away/washed away) when the river bursts its banks.
2. Poor farming methods are responsible for soil (devaluation/erosion )in many areas of Saharan African.
3. During the earthquake,many people were( /covered )alive.
4. The forest fire left a wide area of the mountainside blackened and (ablaze/smouldering).
5. Villagers are hoping for rain this month after nearly a year of (dry weather/drought.)
6. Before the hurricane struck,many people were (evacuated/shifted) to higher ground.
7. Thousands of children in the famine-striken area are suffering from (malnutrition/undernourishment).
10. Heavy snow has fallen in the mountains and many villages have been (blocked out/cut off) for the past two days.
11 .The Aids (epidemic/plague) is having serious effects in some countries.
12. Many small islands in the Indian Ocean are threatened by rising sea (waters/levels).

Cartoon review

1. Despite the confidence that is shown through the teenager’s words to himself, they actually reflect how nervous and worry he is towards the exam that he is going to sit for. He is trying very hard to keep himself cool and relax so that he can remember whatever he has studied the day before the exam.

2. The father is trying to have a conversation with the teenager but his topic of conversation is always the same. The teenager cannot understand his parents’ good intention. Instead, he feels fed up with it but he has chosen a more sarcastic way to signal his parents they are boring.

3. The teenager is complaining to his father that their home internet connection is very bad. He is getting frustrated in waiting for the website to appear as internet is now an important entertainment tool for him.

Reading log - Tales of Childhood

This book depicts the life journey of a child named Roald Dahl before he starts taking up the first job he has after graduation. Roald Dahl goes through this initial part of his whole life journey without his father. The lost of the family main income is supposed to bring tough life for Dahl’s family but this does not happen. Dahl is being educated in well-known schools and his school days are fantastic and full of interesting stories. There are the tricky one, the funny one and the injustice one. These are the events that make his travel a wonderful and fabulous one. Besides school days, he also spends his holidays in Norway, which is a trip that he enjoys very much all the time. His shift from a place to another with different environment is never a dull journey. The mixture of dissatisfy, sad, happy and amusing moments are the spices that turn his childhood and teenage years into a great one.

Today, there are cases where teachers are bullied by their students and some of them even give up this noble job just because they can’t stand the rebellious behavior of nowadays students. However, it is totally opposite during Roald Dahl’s school days. Those who are given the authority will abuse their power to suppress the people below them. No one is allowed to go against them even though they are the one to be blamed. Disobeying their leader or any grown-up is only suicide and they will get an even heavier punishment than before they complain. For example, Dahl is given six strokes by the headmaster for talking in Prep, lying and trying to cheat during Prep even though the teacher on duty-Captain Hardcastle is too far away to be certain that he is asking for answer instead of asking for a new pencil. Oppression can also be shown through the example that Dahl serves as Wilberforce’s favourite bog-seat warmer everytime before Wilberforce want to use the lavatory. Therefore, it is clear to see that those days power is everything.

Overall, there is no character in this novel that I specifically like but I do hate all the masters in schools that Dahl has been to. All of them share one similar disgusting characteristic, which is arrogant. They have their eyes on their head simply because they hold the power to control the students in their schools. They misused their power and treat their students like criminals all the time. They pick on them very frequently and unreasonable punishments are given to those who they assumed have broken the rules. They punish students without having a deeper inspection into their wrongdoings. Besides, they pay no intention to students’ explanation and they show no mercy to the pain their students suffer but feel proud of their deed. To them, the more they have punished, the more powerful they are. They instill fear to their fellow students to stop them from voicing out their unsatisfactory, so that they can always keep their schools in good reputation.

Oppression happens in schools between teachers and students in the past and we should feel lucky that this is no longer occurs in schools now. With the introduction of internet, there is a greater transparency on events happen in schools. The solution to enhance school running system and students’ performance is discussed during the parent-teacher meeting. Besides, canning students who go against the rules is not practiced anymore but the merit system. This is because students nowadays can endure less pain and if their parents find out about their children being caned, the headmaster will be in trouble and the school reputation will be flawed.

Reading log - Falling Leaves

Adeline Yen is the fifth daughter among her siblings. Just after giving birth to her, her mother passed away due to some complication when delivering her. As a result, she is marked as the “bad luck” child and thus, becomes the most unwanted and unloved child at home. She is constantly bullied by her stepmother, Niang and even her own siblings. She is always being treated unfairly and she is the one always to be blamed to whenever things go wrong. In order to gain her parents’ attention and love, she studies hard to be excelled in academic but her outstanding results never gain her any changes in her parents’ attitude towards her. Her feelings and welfare are never being taken into consideration and she is being left out all the time. She continuously tries to win her parents heart but in vain. After graduating in London in Medicine, she follows her fathers’ words to work in his friend’s company despite the low and unreasonable salary as she wants to win his favour. However, her wish never come true as her stepmother, Niang never pleased to see her having even a slightly close relationship with her father. Overall, this is a story about a child journey in seeking love and care from her parents.

In the olden days, sex discrimination is very obvious, especially in the Chinese family. Sons have the privilege for everything as they carry a vital responsibility in ensuring the continuance of the family generations. Daughters will be disowned automatically once they are married and for this reason, once they reached the marriage age, they will be get rid from the family as soon as possible to reduce the family burden. Besides, woman is considered as a lower class people. Husband is dominant at home and they treat their wife rudely. Domestic violence happens every day and women are always the victims. Money is also an important divider in the society. Different quality of services is given according to their status and the amount of money they possessed. The rich will be treated like king while the poor will be treated like slaves. Corruption is rampant and money can be used to solve everything. Therefore, people are willing to betray their own siblings just to get a greater share of their late father property.

Most of the characters in this story possess bad characteristics but the most I dislike is Niang, Adeline’s stepmother. First and for most, she is not a good mother at all. She is biased in taking care of her children, even to her own offspring. She loves her son, Franklin more than her daughter, Susan because Franklin has a higher opportunity to inherit her husband business and property. Besides, she is a woman who always has bad intention in her mind. She cannot stand looking at others having close relationship with their family members. She does all kind of things to destroy the close bond between them. The more they hate each other, the more delightful she is. She is also a merciless woman. She does not feel guilty at all in mistreating her children. She shows no sympathy to children who have lost their mother and have no freedom to do everything. She is self-centered. She cares for no one except for money. She is greedy and it’s her bad personal qualities that cause her have no friends to pay their last respect to her during her funeral.

Everyone needs love regardless his or her age and gender. Therefore, we should show love and care to everyone so that they will realize they are not the unimportant one in a family or society. Besides, there are many successful people in this world but all of them have different family background. It is not necessary that those who come from an unhappy family will succeed in their life. It’s all depends on the person perseverance and hard work. Therefore, we should not give up too easily even if we grow up in an environment which does not guarantee much for our future. We must stay strong all the time because no one can spur up our spirit to achieve our goal in life except ourselves.

Reading log - Desert Flower

This book depicts a Somali woman on her journey to change her fate and live a successful life which is different from her village people. She ran away from home when her father decides to marry her to a fifty years old man and there goes her journey begins. She ran away from home without knowing exactly which direction to go. She faces a lot of problems and misfortunes along her way to her aunt house in Mogadishu. She is attacked by a hungry lion and almost being raped twice. However, she finally makes it to her aunt house, but this is not the end of her suffering. She is fortunate to get some shelters from her relatives but they never treat her like their own children. She has to work as maid in their house in order to secure her “free” stay at their houses. She does all the house chores starting early in the morning until late evening. Besides, she also takes up all kind of jobs, including the men’s work in order to earn a living. She continues her life as a nomad as she moves from one relative to another relative house and from friends’ house to hotel. One day, her beauty is accidentally discovered by a famous photographer which eventually changes her life completely. She becomes a model and eventually, a supermodel.

In this novel, we can clearly see that there is a vast difference between the white people and black people lifestyle. While there are people who are so used to the term “toilet”, there are people from other part of the world who don’t even see, hear or use it before. While there are people who keep pursuing a higher education, there are people who don’t even get the chance to learn the alphabets A till Z. They can’t even secure their basic needs, what else education? People in the third world country are living in poverty. Their life or death is all depends on weather. If there is rain, there is food and they will survive. If someone is sick, they can do nothing as there is no medication supply. Death is such a common thing in their country although they still feel sad for the lost of their family members. The native traditional mindset is the main factor that contributes to the high death rate in that country. Ritual practice is conducted without concerning the health problem that might be bear by the patient after the operation. People in the third world country are suffering but no one from the rich country is willing to help them but continues to look down and take advantage of them.

Despite the hostile environment that Waris is born from, her success is a great breakthrough and a big courage for the African woman to follow her footstep. She is a tough and strong woman with ambitious dream of becoming a model one day in the future. To make her dream come true, she leaves her home without much considering about how she is going to survive without any aid from her family members anymore. Her route to success is not an easy one but the courage and determination she possesses have led her to overcome all the obstacles one after another. She perseveres and she strives for her dream. She learns the survival skills in the new world such as cooking skill and the language English. Besides, she is a filial daughter. Thinking of the probability of her mother’s suffering after her run-away, she accepts the job of brick-carrying worker to earn some money to be sent back to her mother. Besides, she never forgot about her mother after being a successful model. She never gives up tracking her mother and they eventually reunite at Ethiopia.

Despite the advancement in technology that we are relishing now, there are people in other part of the world who has been left out. They are still blinded by their own traditional belief system. Besides, discrimination and oppression still occur in their country where women are considered the weaker gender with no power and control over anything. Man takes control of everything including their daughters’ marriage. It’s a shame for woman not to have husband, so it’s important for them to get married. Literacy level among the people in poor country is very low as they seldom have the opportunity to receive proper education. They have problem in securing their basic needs such as food and water, what else education? Compared to them, we are thousand times wealthier than them in any aspects. Therefore, we should appreciate what we own now including our healthy bodies. If possible, lend a helping hand to those from poor country so that they can have more comfortable life.

Reading log - The Little Prince

The book depicts the journey of a prince from one planet to another planet in search of a friend. After feeling unhappy for not able to please his very demanding friend, the flower, the little prince commences his journey to other planets to find a new friend who will appreciate his care and love. He meets many different kinds of men who have characteristics that puzzled him a lot. He meets the king who is an absolute monarch, the conceited individual who is arrogant, the drunkard, the busy business man, the lamplighter and the geographer before he eventually settles down on the earth. It’s the snake that he meets on earth that makes him understand that something important to us is actually invisible. He also realized that he should never leave the flower all alone in his own planet if she is really her friend. Therefore, he makes the decision to return to his planet and he does it on the one year anniversary of his arrival on earth.

People nowadays are just too busy. They have hectic lifestyle and they are constantly looking for more pots of gold in this world. They have forgotten about many other things because they are blinded by greed and their own arrogance. Life is actually more than just figures and money. They are too obsessed in making money until they have no time to just sit down and enjoy the beauty of nature. They missed every sight of wonderful scene and they lost their imagination. Everything they see is related to money only while it can actually be more than that. They never treat people sincerely. They care for no one and that’s why they seldom feel for others. They thought they are gradually approaching success but actually they are in the opposite way. They are a great loser in drawing their journey of life because they have no feelings. This is a great sorrow to this civilized society.

I especially like the little prince because he is a brave person. He dares to leave his planet and explore the other planet which he knows nothing about. Besides, he is a loving prince. He cares for everything on his planet even just the small and only flower on his tiny planet. He water the flower everyday and he never forget to put her under the glass dome every evening to shield her from the strong wind. Besides, I admire his attitude in learning. He asks for everything that he doesn’t understand and he will not satisfy until he gets reasonable and logic answers for his questions.

People view things in different manners. A star which is so silent and ordinary for most of us can be special to somebody. For travelers, star is useful for guidance and for scholars; star can be the food for thought. As for the author, star is the evidence of his friendship with the little prince who has made him realized that thing that is important is invisible. There is always something that we especially like and we are willing to sacrifice for it. We can simply replace it with a similar one but somehow, we will feel that it is irreplaceable. We like it not because of its physical appearance but maybe the time that we have spend with it, the care and love that we have been spilling on it or maybe the difficulty that we have gone through to look for it. In other eyes, it might be just a simple and normal thing but for us, it is always special in any ways.

A friend of mine

“Hi! Can I know what’s the time now?”
“Erm…around twelve.”
“Ok. Thanks!” She answered me then followed by a sweet ear to ear smile.
“So, who is coming to pick you up now? Your mum?”… …
There goes our first conversation, which I found it quite interesting and full of sincerity. It is her warmness and hospitality that have fascinated me and give me the guts to take the initiative to approach her. She is affable and somehow, I feel that she is a talkative person but when I start to know her better, I actually find that she is not. Quiet is the opposite of talkative but it’s not a really suitable word to describe her because she does talk when she wants to and she has to. She talks about anything to others and she seems like someone with no secret but this does not mean she is not a good secret keeper. In fact, she is. She would never let the cat out of the bag no matter how you force her to reveal others’ secret. I always like to talk to her because she can be a very good listener and sometimes a good adviser too. She is very straight forward in telling the truth and she only says thing which she means it. She hates to be insincere and she dislikes hypocritical person. However, sometimes she doubts her own judgement on these people because sometimes people hide to protect themselves. Therefore, she is always confused.

Day by day, our relationship actually climbs from a level to a higher level and I do discover more about her. If you know her, you can actually see her smiling, laughing all the time. She is happy and contented with her life all the time. There’re two reasons for this. The first one is because she is easily amused by simple things that occur around her. Occasionally, I find her looking at the ground and smiling on her own. It’s an odd scene for others but for me, it’s something that not much people nowadays will do. She gains pleasure just by observing the ants co-operate to move a dead insect from the corner of the gate back to their home. Secondly, she forgives and forgets about others’ wrongdoings very frequently. Unpleasant things will just disappear in her mind in a blink of an eye and therefore, she always looks cheerful. However, she feels sad for having such absent-minded mind. While the heart-trending moments vapourised very quickly, the same goes to the happy memory. She always needs people to remind her about the delightful moments she has before and she hates to let them know she has not much memory on that anymore. People will think she is insincere in any relationship and this makes her feel sad. Because of her forgetfulness too, she always mistakes people who have bad intentions as kind people. Just because of one good thing that people have done, she assumes her to be kind-hearted person even they did evil things before. This is really dangerous but she cannot help to move away from this kind of mindset.

Have you ever see your friends get mad on something before? I have seen this happens on her but I can tell you that she is the one who lose her head for the least time. She seldom loses her temper and it is very difficult to enrage her. Only very serious thing can drive her mad and crazy. She keeps herself in control very well and if she ever goes wild on you, then you have really offended her. However, there is one thing that will definitely fly her into a rage. She extremely hates people who smoke. She has labeled all the smokers as “selfish person” and she absolutely cannot understand why cigarette will ever exist in this world. It brings thousands of harm to the society and no even one benefit to the environment, yet there are so many out there who are deeply in love with it. I am totally agree with her and we always can’t help to display our hatred to them with obvious action, such as covering our noses with tissue paper, fanning the polluted air away from our healthy nose and move away straight away when they approach. However, we only dare to do that to smokers which appear less aggressive and no criminal looks. We are afraid of offending them but the truth is they offend us first! It’s really not fair!

After two years of knowing each other, we finally become the cannot-be-separated “couple”. We are the shadows of each other and we go everywhere and do anything together. Both of us have the passion to music. We listen to all kind of music and songs. Any song which has harmonious melody can be found in our music folder. We not only listen to the songs, but we practice singing together too. Of course, she can sing better than I and that is why she likes showing off about that to me but I know very well she is just proud of the sweet voice she has inherited from her father. She has thought of going for singing classes but she prefers to discover things by herself rather than getting everything from an expert because she enjoys the process in finding out the solutions. One more thing which she can do but I can’t is she can play keyboard and electronic organ but I can’t. She continues playing it even after she stops attending organ classes. She learns on her own and improves her performance by observing her friends playing piano and do some research on her own. She finds the chords for the songs she likes and she actually tries to compose song but for only once. She tends to give up when she fails to play the song she likes and too many times of failure actually cause her to start giving up on music. However, it’s the book entitled “The Last Lecture” that has recuperated her interest in music. “The brick wall is there to tell somebody how badly you want something”. This is the quote that she keeps telling me recently and she tries to keep hold to it whenever she feels like going to succumb to failure and challenge. Besides music, she likes many things else. She enjoys dancing, making handicraft, drawing, shooting basketball and also learning.

Friendly, kind, hardworking and tough, this is all I can describe about her. She seems like a perfect girl and seldom people see her weaknesses. She used to tell me that she is not perfect and her weaknesses are being too absent-minded and always have difficulty in making decision, even the most unimportant decision. However, when she tells others about that, people will just assume those are just the minor weaknesses and they do not really matter much. Are their words true? She tells others that she is actually weak in socializing but no one ever agrees with her. So, she is just a perfect girl? I bet that she would never believe that. Telling her the weaknesses she has is what she truly wants from all of them.