Every student that is preparing for various entrance exams has one central question dominating his thought process: how does improve one’s reading comprehension skills? And one answer that we all know is: by doing English reading practice, right? But the next important and logical question is that what should you read to do English Reading Practice? The answer to this question is one word: Variety. It is very important to read from different sources to do English Reading Practice. The various sources could be:
Newspapers
Magazines
Novels
Blogs
In this daily reads section, we provide you articles from different sources for your English Reading Practice. Read these articles to practice.
Also keep in mind that a good vocabulary is of a great help while solving reading comprehensions. For this purpose, we have provided the difficult words in these articles so that you can understand the context and meaning of the words. This one tip can also come in handy when you do English reading practice. Note down the difficult words and find their meaning. You can also try to guess the meaning of the word in context.
Reading Suggestion-1
Article Name: The cosmology of Poe
Author Name: Paul Halpern
Source: Aeon
Category: Science and Literatur
Summary for this article
In this insightful piece of writing, the writer describes Edgar Allan Poe’s visionary ideas about the universe as detailed in his Prose poem “Eureka”.
Eureka begins with a dedication to the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt. Humboldt’s masterful collection of the Kosmos had directly inspired Eureka.
The writer says that Poe saw the Universe as a central hub – the visible bulge and spiral of the Milky Way – surrounded by a seemingly endless sea of scattered stars and gaseous nebula.
Have you ever wondered why is the sky dark at night? I am sure you would have and if you were curious enough you would have also read many works attempting to answer this. So here you would receive another solution to this perplexing question as one of the great triumphs of Eureka, was Poe’s solution to a perplexing scientific riddle known as Olbers’s paradox ” Why is the sky dark at night?”.
Eureka, says the writer offers a snapshot of the thinking of the age about how the world and the Universe developed.
Definitely an interesting read!
Words to learn from this article:
Prescient: The ability to predict accurately what will happen in future
Riveting: Extremely engrossing *a riveting novel*
Primeval/primordial: Existing from the very beginning
Dramatis persona: Characters of any play
Eschew: To escape
Reading Suggestion-1: Click to read full article
Suggestion-2
Article Name: The Human Nose Knows More Than We Think
Author Name: Andrea Marks
Source: Scientific American
Category: Science
Summary for this article:
When a person loses sight, it is intolerable. When he loses the sense of hearing the same applies. It can be extended to walking, speaking etc. But what if a person loses his sense of smell?
You might laugh it out. And I do not blame you for this because we hardly realize the importance of this as we have stuck to the perception since long that our sense of smell is way less when compared to other animals and hence we find everything else but the sense of smell important and essential.
Interestingly in this informative piece of article, the writer explains how in a paper published by John McGann, the neuroscientist has analyzed the state of human olfaction research, comparing recent and older studies to make an argument of how we aren’t lousy sniffers as our smelling abilities are comparable with those of our fellow mammals.
McGann hopes to make all of us realize the importance of the sense of smell by increasing the profile of clinical olfaction and biomedical research in the field.
Words to learn from this article:
Lousy: Of poor quality or not good *lousy grades /lousy husband*
Broca’s area: Area of brain associated with speech (in left part of brain)
Nuanced: Subtle differences
Tenuous: Weak or thin
Debunked: To refute or to disconfirm any idea or statement
Reading Suggestion-2: Click to read full article
Reading Suggestion-3
Article Name: Why Do Flamingos Stand on One Leg?
Author Name: Yuval Noah Harari
Source: Discover Magazine
Category: Science
Summary for this article:
How long can you stand on one leg? Whatever your answer may be I am sure it wouldn’t be for long as we find ourselves more stable by standing on both our legs as against one.
But surprisingly counterintuitive as it may sound, the flamingo often stands on a single leg, even while asleep as it requires less effort for them to stand on one leg rather than two.
The findings by the researchers suggest that flamingos rely on passive mechanisms instead of active muscular effort to support their body and control their balance as they stand on one leg.
You sure would want to read this article to understand better about their findings and how these findings can be used in other areas of design.
Words to learn from this article:
Plumes: Decoration using feathers
Thawing: Warm weather time sufficient enough to melt ice/friendly period in any relationship (eg: a thaw in international relations)
Cadaver: A dead body
Budge: To move slightly *their horses failed to budge*
Reading Suggestion-3: Click to read full article
English Reading Practice: What should you keep in mind?
To sum up, we can say that, the best way to do English Reading Practice is by reading and you should always strive to maintain variety in your reading. It is not advisable to read the same author or the same kind of news every time. Another important point related to English Reading Practice is that you should keep noting down the words you don’t understand in the passage and then search their meaning.
Want to explore more Daily Reading Suggestions?
Daily Reads-43 (Level-1)
Daily Reads-43 (Level-2)
Daily Reads-44 (Level-1)
Daily Reads-44 (Level-2)
Daily Reads-45 (Level-1)
Explore Our Full Daily Reads Section