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Reading Comprehension Exercise # 229

The passage summarizes two types of travelers and trends in modern travel. It describes travelers who seek out new experiences and endure discomforts to truly experience foreign places. However, it notes that travel often involves loneliness, fatigue, and homesickness. A second type of traveler has emerged in recent decades who experiences travel as something familiar through packaged tours. They are transported quickly between identical hotels and airports, experiencing little true movement or exposure to new cultures. While initially only for the rich, packaged tourism has now become more common and altered perceptions of travel. The passage suggests modern travel comforts come at the cost of genuine cultural exposure and insights into new places.

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145 views2 pages

Reading Comprehension Exercise # 229

The passage summarizes two types of travelers and trends in modern travel. It describes travelers who seek out new experiences and endure discomforts to truly experience foreign places. However, it notes that travel often involves loneliness, fatigue, and homesickness. A second type of traveler has emerged in recent decades who experiences travel as something familiar through packaged tours. They are transported quickly between identical hotels and airports, experiencing little true movement or exposure to new cultures. While initially only for the rich, packaged tourism has now become more common and altered perceptions of travel. The passage suggests modern travel comforts come at the cost of genuine cultural exposure and insights into new places.

Uploaded by

Nuria Cabrera
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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I.S.P. "Dr. Joaqun V.

Gonzlez"
Departamento de Ingls
Curso de Consolidacin
Docente a cargo: Lic. Daniela Fiorina
Name: .

Reading Comprehension Exercise # 229


Below the passage, you will find a number of questions or unfinished statements about the
passage, each with four suggested answers or ways of finishing. You must choose the
one which you think fits best. Give one answer only to each question. Show your choice
by circling a letter. Read the passage right through before choosing your answers.

There are those whom we instantly recognize as clinging to the traditional values of travel, the
people who endure a kind of alienation and panic of foreign parts for the after-taste of having
sampled new scenes. On the whole, travel at its best is rather comfortless, but travel is never easy:
you get very tired, you get lost, you get your feet wet, you get little co-operation, and if it is to
have any value at all- you go alone. Homesickness is part of this kind of travel. In these
circumstances, it is possible to make interesting discoveries about oneself and ones surroundings.
Travel has less to do with distance than wit insight: it is, very often, a way of seeing.
The second group of travelers has only appeared in numbers in the past twenty years. For these
people, paradoxically, travel is an experience of familiar things; it is travel that carries with it the
illusion of immobility. It is going to a familiar airport and being strapped into a seat and held
captive for a number of hours immobile; then arriving at an almost identical airport; being whisked
to a hotel so fast it is not like movement at all, and the hotel and the food are identical to the hotel
and the food in the city one has just left. This is all tremendously reassuring and effortless; indeed,
it is possible to go from say- London to Singapore and not experience the feeling of having
traveled anywhere.
For many years in the past, this was enjoyed by the rich. It is wrong to call it tourism, because
businessmen also travel this way; and many people, who believe themselves to be travelers, object
to being called tourists. The luxury travelers of the past set an example for the package tourists of
today. In this sort of travel you take your society with you: your language, your food, your styles of
hotel and service. It is of course the prerogative of rich nations America, Western Europe, and
Japan. It has had a profound effect on our view of the world. It has made real travel greatly sought
after and somewhat rare. And I think it has caused a resurgence of travel writing.
As everyone knows, travel is very unsettling, and it can be quite hazardous and worrying. One
way of overcoming this anxiety is to travel packaged in style: luxury is a great remedy for the
alienation of travel. What helps calm us is a reminder of stability and protection and what the
average package tourist looks for in foreign surroundings is familiar sights.
1. The travelers described in paragraph 1
A.
B.
C.
D.

travel great distances.


are afraid of new experiences.
learn a lot about new places.
receive more help from local people.

2. According to the author, the traditional traveller


A.
B.
C.
D.

feels at home in new places.


enjoys minor discomforts.
should expect to feel homesick.
dislikes company.

3. The author suggests that the second group of travellers


A.
B.
C.
D.

chooses boring destinations.


is afraid of anything new.
would prefer to stay at home.
adapts quickly to fresh surroundings.

4. What gives travel an illusion of immobility?


A.
B.
C.
D.

The
The
The
The

absence of new experiences.


onset of fatigue.
number of people traveling.
length of the journey.

5. Which of the following statements best sums up the authors attitude to


travel?
A.
B.
C.
D.

Travel has to be tiring to be worthwhile.


The package holiday encourages interest in new places.
Modern travel has become comfortable but boring.
Only the rich can travel in comfort.

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