Page 162 - BACKUP ENGLISH | PREPARATORY CLASS

THEME 13 OLD TIMES

Culture Corner

Read the text below and search the Net to find another interesting fact about a different ancient civilisation. Then share it
with your classmates as a presentation and exchange ideas.

Apart from being rulers, many Chinese emperors were also poets and
calligraphers. Some of them were famous for writing beautiful poems, but the
Qianlong Emperor had a reputation for being the worst poet ever. He wrote over
43,000 poems during his lifetime, which is a lot, but his writing skills were not very

good. Scholars think that he copied other people’s work and paid ghostwriters.
Consider one of his poems about snow as an example of how bad his writing was:
One piece, another piece, and another piece;
Two pieces, three pieces, four, five pieces;

Six pieces, seven pieces, eight, nine pieces;
China
All fly into the flowering reeds and disappear.

In ancient Egypt, pharaohs were slim and fit in their sculptures; however, this
was not an accurate representation. The Egyptian diet consisted mainly of
carbohydrates, which were high in sugar. Therefore, studies suggest this diet
caused weight gain and other health issues among the royals. Archaeologists

examined mummies and according to this, many Egyptian rulers were overweight
and used to suffer from conditions like diabetes.

Egypt

TONGUE TWISTER
Read the tongue twisters and practise saying them as fast as possible.

Ruth’s brother was thrilled to find the toothbrush that he thought he’d

lost beneath the theatre seats.

/θ/

This Thursday, practise saying “The thunder that thunders is not the

thunder that threatens the weather”.

/ð/

Thirty thoughtful thinkers thoughtfully thank the theology teacher for

teaching them how to pronounce the word ‘thorn’.

160 English for Preparatory Class