ENGLISH LANGUAGE CENTRE

ENGLISH – I (SPRING 2020)

ASSIGNMENT #3 - TOTAL MARKS: 10

Student Name. __________________ Student Reg. ____________

Section. ________________________ Date. __________________

Instructions:
 Attempt all questions
 Plagiarized content will result in being marked zero for the assignment
 Assignment submission must be within the given time (i.e. within 3 days)
 Late turn-ins will not be allowed
 Submit your work at least an hour before the deadline to avoid any
inconvenience
 Font type should be Times New Roman and font size should be 12
 After completing the assignment in separate MS Word Doc file, save it in this
format: NameIDEng1A2S20
 Upload the assignment in MS Teams by clicking (Add Work) Tab.

Read the passages carefully and answer the questions.

Passage 1: Houses Around the World ( /5)

Do you live in a house? You might be surprised to learn that there are many, many kinds of
houses. Most people in the United States are used to houses made of wood or bricks. But
many people around the world live in houses made of grass, dirt, or cloth.

In the Great Rift Valley of Eritrea, the nomadic people who are in the Atr tribe build their
houses of straw. Their houses are shaped like domes – half spheres. The homes are small and
cool. The people can move their houses when they want to move. Since the people are
nomads, they move often. They take their animals to new places in order to find food.

People who belong to the Uros tribe of Lake Titicaca, Peru build their houses of reeds. Not
only that –– they also live on islands that are made of reeds! Their boats are made of reeds
too! About 2,000 people live on these man–made islands. They started to build their own
islands about 500 years ago.

In Andalusia, in the south of Spain, some people live in underground houses. This kind of
house is called a cueba. During the winter, the houses stay warm. During the summer, the
houses stay cool.
In Sana’a, Yemen, some people live in tall houses made of bricks. These bricks are made of
clay, straw, and soil. The bricks last many years –– maybe as long as 500 years. The modern
houses in Sana’a are made to look like the older, traditional houses, but they are made of
concrete instead of bricks.

In Mindanao in the Philippines, some people still live in tree houses. The tree houses are
made of bamboos with grass roofs. The houses are good lookouts for snakes and wild
animals. The air is cool and the houses stay dry. Now, most people use these tree houses as
meeting places.

The fishermen of Sabah, Malaysia build their houses on the water. They use wood from
mangrove trees. This wood stays strong in the water. The houses receive official addresses
from the government.

Fujian, China has many townhouses that are made of hard–packed soil. The dirt becomes as
strong as brick when it is packed hard. One large family group lives in a townhouse. The
townhouses were built around 300 years ago. A group of townhouses is protected by a thick
dirt–packed wall.

In the Gobi Desert in Mongolia, some nomadic people live in homes called gels. These
homes are made of cloth. The cloth is filled with animal hair. Two poles in the center of the
house hold the house up. The people move often to find food for their animals. The houses
are easy to move and set up.

Some American Indians live in teepees. These homes are made of cloth or buffalo hide.
There are wooden poles used to hold the teepee up. Now, some people use teepees only for
special ceremonies, but people used to live in them all the time.

The traditional houses of Chitos, Greece, are made of stone. They have arched doorways and
indoor courtyards. They have outdoor dining rooms which are decorated with tile and rock.
This means they are ornamented, and made to look more beautiful.

The Dayak people of Indonesia build some of their houses on stilts, several feet above the
ground. The frame of the house is made of iron. The walls are made of tree bark. The floors
are made of wooden planks which are placed side by side. The houses are decorated with
pictures of water snakes and rhinoceros birds. These animals are part of the people’s story of
creation, or how the world was made. People build their houses to fit the needs of their lives.
The houses are different, but one thing is the same wherever you go. There’s no place like
home!

a. How are the houses and the islands of the Uros Tribe the same? ( /1)

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 b. Why did people live in tree houses? ( /1)

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c. Which groups have cloth houses? ( /1)

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d. Where do houses have outdoor rooms? ( /1)

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e. Why are Dayak houses decorated with the pictures of snakes? ( /1)
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Passage 2: The Failure of E.T. Video Game ( /5)

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is a video game that came out for the Atari 2600 game system in
1982. It was based on a very popular film of the same name. It cost over 125 million dollars
to make. Star programmer Howard Scott Warshaw created it with consultation from Steven
Spielberg. And it is widely considered to be one of the worst video games ever created. The
massive failure of E.T. and its effects on Atari is an often-mentioned reason for the video
game industry crash of 1983.
It was July 27th, 1982. Howard Scott Warshaw was hot off the success of his most recent
game, Raiders of the Lost Ark. He received a call from Atari C.E.O. Ray Kassar. Atari had
bought the rights to make a video game version of Spielberg's movie, E.T. the Extra-
Terrestrial, which had just been released in June. Kassar told Warshaw that Spielberg had
specifically asked for Warshaw to make the game. Warshaw was honored, but there was one
huge problem. Atari needed the game finished by September 1st in order to start selling it
during the Christmas season.
It had taken Warshaw six months to create Raiders of the Lost Ark. The game he made prior
to that took him seven months. He was expected to create E.T. in around five weeks.
Warshaw just did not have enough time to program the game properly, but he accepted the
challenge anyway and production began. Spielberg wanted Warshaw to create a simple maze
game, similar to Pac-Man, but Warshaw had a bigger vision. He wanted players to explore
different environments in a 3D world. Warshaw followed his vision.
Atari anticipated that the game would be a huge success. Usually companies like Atari have
people test games before releasing them. If there is something that testers really dislike,
programmers can fix it before the public gets a chance to play. Atari decided to skip testing
due to time limitations. They wanted the game released during the holiday season. It was:
E.T. was released in December of 1982.
The game sold very well at first. It was a hot holiday item. Unfortunately, Atari
overestimated how many they would sell. They made 5 million copies and they only sold 1.5
million. Most people who played the game hated it. The graphics were bad. Game play was
awkward. Players got stuck in holes that they couldn't escape. A short time limit made the
game difficult to explore and frustrating to play. Some people who stuck with the game grew
to like it, but it wasn't the mainstream success that Atari had hoped it would be.
Too many copies of the game sat on store shelves. One employee remembers the game being
discounted five times, from $49.95 to less than a dollar. Many people returned the game.
Atari was left with millions of unsold copies. In September of 1983, a newspaper in New
Mexico reported that between 10 and 20 semitrailer truckloads of Atari products were
crushed and buried at a landfill in Alamogordo. Perhaps a million or more copies of E.T.
were buried in the desert. When word got out, the drop site had to be covered with cement to
prevent scavenging.
Atari lost over $100 million on E.T. The game was so bad that it was said to have affected
Atari's reputation. The video game industry soon fell into a deep depression. In 1983 the
industry made $3.2 billion. By 1985 profit fell to just over $100 million. This was almost a
97% drop. Many critics believe that Atari's blunder on E.T. was one of the causes leading to
this depression. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial will long be remembered as one of the worst video
games ever made, if not one of the causes of the decline of the entire video game industry.
a. What is the main idea of the passage? ( /1)
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b. Why is Extra-Terrestrial the worst video game ever? ( /1)

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c. Why do you think that Atari anticipated the game would be a huge success? ( /1)
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d. How has E.T. affected the reputation of Atari? ( /1)

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e. What was the estimation about the sales of the games? ( /1)
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