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READ THIS
This lighthearted article from a Sunday newspaper examines the various aspects of death.
This is part ONE of the comprehension.
READ THE FOLLOWING PASSAGE:
1. DON'T want to appear unduly maudlin on a Sunday morning but I am going to discuss death. About
six years ago I discovered I suffer from an incurable condition that will eventually claim my life.
2. I've known about it since I was very young but for a large part of my life I was in what is known as
"denial", never believing that I could fall victim to it. Once I acknowledged it and realised that I only had
a certain time to live, it changed my attitude enormously.
3. You've no idea how much fun you can have when you finally come to realise that there may be no
tomorrow. Sunsets in the bush become even more dramatic and you can spend hours just sitting on a
rock watching the ocean roll in, knowing that there is nothing else you would rather be doing right then.
4. Relationships with other people become more important and you learn that close friendships and
money matters don't usually go well together. You also realise that life is too short to spend with people
you don't much care for.
5. This incurable condition of mine is known simply as mortality. Depending on the seriousness of the
condition it can have quite unpleasant symptoms, but for many people it is just there and they remain
unaware of it until it is too late.
6. Unavoidable though it is, mortality is not a fashionable topic of conversation. Glossy magazines don't
carry full-page adverts for designer coffins. When it comes to the accoutrements of death there are no
premium brands because even the advertising industry realises that, at that stage, who gives a damn?
7. In our dynamic, thrusting society death is seen as the ultimate failure. It is uncool to die. Which is
presumably why some people are prepared to spend enormous amounts of money on prolonging their
lives, regardless of quality, in the vain hope that they won't be seen as party poopers.
8. A by-product of this desire for immortality is the equally absurd quest for eternal youth. There are a
few women of 50 who deserve to look like 30-year-olds because they have eaten sensible diets, exercised
regularly, stayed off the booze and never smoked. Some are just lucky and obviously swam in the deep
end of the gene pool.
9. However, most women of 50 get the looks they deserve (as do men) and no amount of cosmetic
tinkering and Botox injections can disguise that.
10. Can there be a more pitiable sight, I wonder, than a woman who has obviously spent a small fortune
on cosmetic surgery in a desperate attempt to make herself look younger? Women's magazines
frequently carry stories telling readers how to "look younger in minutes".
11. It usually involves slapping on some expensive rejuvenation cream with a secret formula developed
by scientists at a remote laboratory in the Swiss Alps. Whether the formula actually exists or, as seems
more likely, was dreamed up by the marketing department of a pharmaceutical company doesn't seem
to bother the users, who are prepared to pay through the nose to look younger. Vanity, thy name is
woman.
12. It would, of course, be a lot more honest if women's magazines ran the headline "Disguise yourself
as a younger woman", but that would shatter the all important illusion that, by rubbing in creams, going
on weird diets and indulging in expensive surgery you are actually becoming younger. Well, mentally,
maybe.
13. The preoccupation with eternal life and youthful good looks helps to explain our inability to understand
the AIDS epidemic in this country. Almost a year ago I wrote a column suggesting that the government
was "unwilling to pump public money" into providing HIV drugs because it would involve keeping an
economically unviable portion of the population alive.
14. The chances of many of these people becoming active contributors to the South African economy
after a course of free drugs is, sadly, remote. I was expecting howls of protest but I heard nothing, so must
I assume that I was spot on.
15. HIV cannot be caught by breathing tainted air. In most cases it is a "voluntary" condition, transmitted
sexually. The fact that it is widespread and growing is often put down to a lack of education but it could
just as easily be that the threat of AIDS is not a particularly strong deterrent to people who know that their
quality of life, if they abstain from casual sex, is never going to amount to much.
16. Unlike the cosmetically altered zombies terrified of the ignominy of death, some people actually
embrace their own mortality.
David Bullard, Sunday Times, 6 April 2003
Have you looked at the questions
in the right column?
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TEST YOURSELF!
Read the left column and then answer
the following questions:
Paragraph 1:
- What is so strange about discussing death on a Sunday morning? (4)
[Need help?]
Sunday morning would seem to be the time for sleeping in -- or for church services or relaxing around
the house.
One wouldn't normally associate that time with a discussion of death, would one?
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- Explain the "incurable condition" from which the writer suffers which will eventually "claim
his life"? Explain yourself. (4)
[Need help?]
The writer later calls that incurable condition "mortality".
In other words, we are all going to die sometime or other because that is how our lives will eventually end:
by dying!
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Paragraph 2:
- Explain the psychological term known as "denial". (4)
[Need help?]
"Denial" is that thing which we humans do when we refuse to recognise that something is
happening, or must happen.
Most people refuse to acknowledge that they will die. Cancer sufferers often refuse to acknowledge that
they are indeed dying.
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Paragraph 3:
- Why, according to the writer, should it be such fun to know there will be no
tomorrow? (4)
[Need help?]
If one knew the exact time of death, says the writer, somehow the time left over would become more
precious. We would appreciate it much more.
And we would also stop wasting time, like the time we waste with people we really don't particularly like.
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Paragraph 5:
- What does the writer mean when he says that mortality can have "quite unpleasant
symptoms"? (4)
[Need help?]
The problem with dying is that it usually happens in some painful way, like through an illness or an
accident.
This is indeed most unpleasant and unfortunate.
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Paragraph 6:
- Why would mortality not be a "fashionable topic of conversation"? (2)
[Need help?]
People don't like talking about death. Indeed, it is a topic that is mostly avoided.
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- What is meant by a "premium brand" of coffin? (2)
[Need help?]
A "premium coffin" would be one that is more expensive than most, one that is of better quality.
Is the writer's view here actually correct when he says that people don't "give a damn"? It seems
that in South Africa, most people do appear to go for the most expensive coffins!
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Paragraph 7:
- Why should it be "uncool to die"? (2)
[Need help?]
The "cool" thing is to be successful in one's life. To die, on the other hand, is somehow to be
unsuccessful!
It is therefore "not cool" to die.
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- What is meant by a "party pooper"? Why is a dying person described as a "party
pooper"? (4)
[Need help?]
A "party pooper" is someone who spoils everyone else's fun by refusing to play along with what
everyone else is doing.
In this paragraph, a party pooper is someone who ages or (even worse) dies and so destroys everyone
else's fun. After all, nobody enjoys it when someone dies!
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