Process Unit

Sports Reading 1

Rapid Reading Warm-Up (30 Seconds)

Directions: The exercise below has 25 problems that will help you read faster. You will have only 30 seconds to finish. You will probably not finish all 25 problems, but you are to work as quickly as you can. Be careful not to make any error, so read rapidly but carefully. In this exercise, there are six words: one word to the left of the line and five to the right. Read the word on the left and then find it among the five words to the right. Once you have found it, circle it.

Example

raft	rift	rate	raft	rote	reef
1. great	grate	grit	great	grunt	grotto
2. play	ploy	ply	plane	pray	play
3. time	tune	tame	time	tone	train
4. both	bath	booth	both	bathe	breath
5. lead	led	lade	load	lead	lend
6. tough	tough	trough	trout	tout	trash
7. donor	diner	dinner	donor	dander	dime
8. choke	chalk	chink	choker	chin	choke
9. lived	lever	liver	loved	lived	live
10. drank	drink	drunk	rank	drank	crank
11. injury	injure	jury	unjust	injury	usury
12. dream	dram	dream	drone	dame	dander
13. death	dearth	dean	death	doth	drought
14. forget	forgo	forget	forgone	forth	further
15. gave	gave	glove	give	giver	given
16. part	pert	port	dart	pith	part
17. people	paper	poor	people	pare	apparel
18. ages	aged	agent	sages	ages	pages
19. many	money	mane	manor	any	many
20. perhaps	perchance	perhaps	per	pairs	pores
21. wins	winds	ways	wise	wins	waist
22. priority	prior	parity	pair	priority	prawn
23. avoid	evade	void	avid	aver	avoid
24. deny	denial	dent	deny	dainty	dine
25. strong	strongly	stronger	stranger	strongest	strong

First Reading (3 Minutes for Preview – 3½ Minutes for Reading)

Directions: Starting with the first sentence of the passage, read as quickly as you can for three and a half minutes. Circle the last word you read when your teacher tells you to stop reading.

Second Reading (3½ Minutes)

Directions: Starting with the first sentence of the passage, read as quickly as you can for three and a half minutes. Circle the last word you read when your teacher tells you to stop reading.

Third Reading (3½ Minutes)

Directions: Starting with the first sentence of the passage, read as quickly as you can for three and a half minutes. Circle the last word you read when your teacher tells you to stop reading.

Fourth Reading (3½ Minutes)

Directions: Starting with the first sentence of the passage, read as quickly as you can for three and a half minutes. Circle the last word you read when your teacher tells you to stop reading.

Line

Word

Count

Mickey Mantle was one of the greatest baseball players of all time. He played for the New York Yankees in their years of glory. From the time Mantle began to play in 1951 to his last year in 1968, baseball was the most popular game in the United States. For many people, Mantle symbolized the hope, prosperity, and confidence of America at that time.

Mantle was a fast and powerful player, a “switch-hitter” who could bat both right-handed and left-handed. He won game after game, one World Series championship after anther, for his team. He was a wonderful athlete, but this alone cannot explain America’s fascination with him.

Perhaps it was because he was a handsome, red-haired country boy, the son of a poor miner from Oklahoma. His career, from the lead mines of the West to the heights of success and fame, was a fairy-tale version of the American dream. Or perhaps it was because America always loves a “natural”: a person who wins without seeming to try, whose talent appears to come from an inner grace. That was Mickey Mantle.

But like many celebrities, Mickey Mantle had a private life that was full of problems. He played without complaint despite constant pain from injuries. He lived to fulfill his father’s dreams and drank to forget his father’s early death. Alcohol was part of his friendships, his family life, his retirement distractions.

It was alcoholism that finally destroyed his body. It gave him cirrhosis of the liver and accelerated the advance of liver cancer. Even when Mickey Mantle had turned away from his old life and warned young people not to follow his example, the destructive process could not be stopped. Despite a liver transplant operation that had all those who loved and admired him hoping for a recovery, Mickey Mantle died of cancer at the age of 63.

By Mickey Mantle (from Sports Illustrated)

149

196

246

310

Reading Comprehension (6 Minutes)

Directions: Circle the letter next to the statement that best answers the following questions.

1. On line 4, “symbolized” means _____.

a. involved

b. represented

c. caused

2. On line 8, “wonderful” means _____.

a. pleasant

b. beyond belief

c. great

3. On line 9, “this” refers to _____.

a. athlete

b. being a wonderful athlete

c. winning one World Series after another

4. On line 16, “private” means _____.

a. personal

b. privileged

c. secret

5. On line 22, “accelerated” means _____.

a. delayed

b. sped up

c. caused

6. The main idea of paragraph 2 is _____.

a. Mantle was a superb athlete

b. Mantle was behind his team’s repeated wins

c. Mantle was a fascinating player

7. Based on the last sentence in paragraph 2, paragraph 3 will discuss why _____.

a. Mantle’s popularity was due to his extraordinary athletic ability as a ballplayer

b. Mantle’s popularity was due to his ability to win many World Series championships

c. Mantle’s popularity was due to more than his extraordinary athletic ability

8. The main idea of paragraph 4 is _____.

a. Mantle abused alcohol in his private life

b. Mantle’s suffered from constant pain

c. Mantle’s private life was full of problems

9. The main idea of paragraph 5 is _____.

a. Mantle had a liver transplant because of cirrhosis of the liver

b. Mantle died as a result of alcoholism

c. Mantle died of cancer at 63

10. A good title for this reading would be _____.

a. Mickey Mantle: The Celebrity and the Private Man

b. Mickey Mantle: The Greatest Baseball Player of All Time

c. Mickey Mantle: A Man Destroyed by Cancer