5. Solved exercises
Reading activity
New York city and Los Angeles are two of the most popular cities in the USA. As everybody knows they have lots of similarities and differences if we talk about location, population, climate, history and even activities.
By arnaud bertrande. C. Commons
New York City is located in New York State, and has a population of 18 million people. On the contrary, Los Angeles is located in the state of California and it is less big than New York in the number of inhabitants, since it has a population of 3.5 million people. Both of them are on opposite coasts, New York is in the east and Los Angeles is in the west. It is obvious then that their climate is also quite different. Los Angeles is far hotter than New York. In fact, in summer, Los Angeles can reach higher temperatures than 32 degrees. New York City, however, has freezing winters with temperatures of -1 degree or below. Los Angeles winters are between 4.5-15.5 degrees and it also has a rainy season, from November to April.
By wirralwater. C. Commons
As far as the history of these two cities is concerned, New York City used to be called New Amsterdam until 1664 when the British took control of it. They renamed it and from that year on it became known as New York City. Not only is New York bigger than cities like Johannesburg or Madrid, it is also bigger than Los Angeles. It has a total of 301 square miles. The earliest residents of Los Angeles area were people who arrived in the desert region between 5000 and 6000 BC. Los Angeles stretches a total of 44 square miles. Thus, it is much smaller than New York. Curiously, the smallest city in the USA is said to be West New York Town, in New Jersey, which stretches only 1 square mile.
Obviously, and taking into account that both of them are two of the most well-known cities worldwide, in New York and Los Angeles there are always a lot of interesting and amusing activities to get involved with. In the former, for example, there is the Statue of Liberty, museums and restaurants to explore, or even an exciting game of baseball, basketball or football to watch. In the latter, there is a great number of galleries, the movie industry, and the beach to relax on.
In conclusion, these two cities are very far apart from each other, yet, as can be seen, they have many similarities and differences based on the location, population, climate, history, and activities.
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| By waynewhuang. C. Commons |
After reading this, Paco thought Johannesburg was even smaller than these two cities but it was also an excellent place to visit. He also thought of the meaning of the Statue of Liberty and the telling-off the black man had received in the museum. It was the saddest scene he had ever seen.
Solved exercise
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| By Oberazzi. C. Commons |
1. Does the writer of the passage think it is better to live in New York than in Los Angeles? Explain your answer.
2. According to the text, what city was first inhabited? Explain your answer.
Example exercise
When we want to compare two or more people, things or places, we obviously need the comparative and superlative forms of adjectives and adverbs. This is the reason why there are so many comparative and superlative phrases and sentences in the passage above.
| Comparative phrases/sentences | Superlative phrases/sentences |
Example activity
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Another question in the PAU is, up to now, as you already know related to pronunciation. In it, remember that you are asked to find out in the text two words which contain the same sound as a word which is provided. Normally, the sounds asked are long vowels, short vowels, diphthongs, and, more oddly, triphthongs.
Find as many words as you can in the text containing vowels that are pronounced in the same way as
| a in talk |
... ... ... ... ... |
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o in population |
... ... ... ... ... |
(Underline the part of the word that contains the sound).