Lecture 2 :
2 - Understanding Reference حلإٗـــــــــخٍس ُــــــفٙ
What’s wrong with this sentence?
Some people believe that university education should be available to everyone as university
education will help with employment.
The problem here is that ̳university education‟ has been repeated – the sentence would
have been better presented using a reference word like this:
Some people believe that a university education should be available to everyone as this will
help with employment.
Reference words (words that refer back to a previous word or phrase but without repeating
it) are very common in many reading texts and can often cause some confusion. An
important part of understanding a text is being able to identify the reference words and
their relationship to other words, phrases or sentences.
Example:
New Zealand is becoming an increasingly popular destination for overseas visitors. It attracts
tourists and people on business, but the vast majority come as students. Mostly from Asian
countries, they stay for anything from a few weeks to a few years or more, studying at language
schools, colleges and universities. New Zealand can offer good home stay accommodation, a clean
and beautiful environment and a reasonable cost of tuition مصروفات الدراسة. These factors attract an
ever-increasing number of overseas students, accounting for millions of dollars in revenue for New
Zealand.
It refers to...... (a) overseas (b) New Zealand (c) visitors
They refers to..... (a) Asian countries (b) tourists and business people (c) students
These factors refers to... (a) accommodation, environment and reasonable tuition costs
(b) schools, colleges, universities (c) increasing overseas students
Example: The Problem of Old Computers
Approximately 10 million computers are thrown away each year! Because most unwanted computers
are sent to a dump, (1) they have caused a problem. The computer industry and the government are
working on ways to solve (2) it. (3) They have concluded that there must be changes in the way
computers are built. (4) They must be made in ways that will allow their parts to be recycled. (5) These
include the electronic parts, the glass screen of the monitor, and pieces of the printer.
(1) they = ......................... (4) They = .....................
(2) it = ........................... (5) These = ...................
(3) They = ........................