1 Destinations:

Antarctica: Page 4

Honduras: Page 6

China: Page 8

America: Page 10

Ukraine: Page 12

Pakistan: Page 14

North Pole: Page 16

Russia: Page 18

The : Page 20

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Antarctica: Lake Vostok

Research and Discoveries:

Antarctica is the Earth’s southernmost continent, containing the geographic South Pole. Around 98 % of the continent is covered by ice and it is the fifth largest continent (twice the size of Australia).

Russian scientist Peter Kropotkin first proposed the idea of fresh water under Antarctic ice sheets at the end of the 19th century. He theorised that the considerable pressure exerted by the mass of thousands of vertical metres of ice could increase the temperature at the lowest points of the ice sheet and therefore cause the ice at the very bottom to melt. But it was not until Russian geographer Andrey Kapitsa recorded seismic soundings in the region of Vostok Station (“East Station”) – while he was on a Soviet Antarctic Expedition in 1964 – that the existence of a ‘subglacial lake’ in the region was suggested.

When British scientists in Antarctica performed airborne ice-penetrating radar surveys in the early 1970s, they detected unusual radar readings at the site, which suggested the presence of a liquid, freshwater lake below the ice. Surveys and research since this point have revealed around 140 freshwater lakes beneath the ice; Lake Vostok was found to be one of the largest lakes in the world.

Geological History:

Africa separated from Antarctica around 160 million years ago. Around 66 million years ago, Antarctica (then connected to Australia) still had a tropical climate, complete with a vast array of species and an extensive temperate rainforest. Lake Vostok is believed to be cradled on a bed of ancient sediments 70 metres thick; there is a possibility that they will contain a unique record of the climate and life in Antarctica before the ice cap formed. A recent breakthrough in January 2015 revealed, quite remarkably, that the water below the ice was an average of -3°c. The water below the surface does not freeze due to the extreme pressure; this discovery hailed as one of the biggest geological discoveries on Earth. Scientists, however, have been experiencing difficulties in collecting life-form samples that are not contaminated due to previous unsterilized drills and their own anti-freezing agents (needed to drill through the ice). For the last three years, Russian scientists have been carefully drilling the last 500 metres of the surface in an attempt to collect pure samples. Who knows what will be discovered?

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1. What exactly is Lake Vostok?

2. Who was the lake identified by, and how was it identified?

3. you earn ou Antarctica’s story?

1. What are some of the difficulties that have scientists faced over the years when trying to learn about the lake?

2. What was remarkable about the water in Lake Vostok?

3. Why might this discovery be important and valuable to science?

4 Honduras: The Lost City of the Monkey God

In a dense jungle in a remote part of the Mosquitia region of eastern Honduras, a place so untouched that native animals do not fear humans, a team of scientists and archaeologists say they have discovered evidence of a mysterious lost city.

La Cuidad Blanca (Spanish for ‘The White City’) is a legendary settlement said to be located in eastern Honduras. Due to conflicting stories, and a lack of trustworthy information, most professional archeologists doubted that it referred to any one actual settlement, never mind one representing an ancient city of the Pre-Columbian era. Nonetheless, the first real modern sighting of this mysterious region, which was claimed by indidgenous people to be an area of extreme wealth, was in 1927: aviator Charles Lindbergh reported seeing a ‘white city’ while flying over eastern Honduras. Later, Eduard Conzemius, an ethnographer from Luxembourg, claimed that it had been dubbed ‘The White City’ bec ause its buildings and a wall around it were formed from white stone.

In 1939, adventurer Theodore Morde claimed to have found a ‘Lost City of the Monkey God’; however, he ne ver revealed the precise location for fear that it would be looted; Morde later died, rather mysteriously, before being able to continue his exploration. Several expeditions have been led since Morde’s time in an attempt to rediscover the elusive ancient metropolis. In 2013, an expedition team announced further analysis of an area (the exact location of which they did not reveal), which was reported as analysis of a ‘lost city’ by the media. Indeed, many have been quick to criticise any announcements: Rosemary Joyce, an expert on Honduran archaeology from UC Berkeley, called it: ‘big hype’ and ‘bad ar cheaology’. There have been, however, recent discoveries which suggest otherwise: In February 2015, archaeologists surveyed and mapped extensive plazas, earthworks, mounds, and an earthen pyramid belonging to a culture that thrived a thousand years ago, and then vanished. The team, which recently returned from the site, also discovered a remarkable cache of stone sculptures that had lain untouched since the city was abandoned…

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1. What the ngli slation o L udad anca’ d where exactly is it situated (give detail!)?

2. When was the first modern sighting of this area, and who saw it?

3. Why did Theodore Morde not wish to share the location of the city?

1. What evidence is there to suggest that the city has been fabricated?

2. “I i morall wrong o sturb en religiou reas” Do you ee r sagre wi thi atement? Why?

3. Why was Theodor Mord death regard mysterious’? Thi may quire xtra search.

6 China: The Tibetan Mastiff

The Tibetan Mastiff is currently the world’s most ex pensive canine. Tibet – the mountainous region between India and China – still remains home to these enormous and sometimes ferocious dogs, which are often said to resemble lions due to their huge manes and impressive stature. They were originally bred, in ancient times, to protect temples and are still widely used today by local tribes of Himachal Pradesh to protect their sheep from leopards. Although they implement all of the usual livestock guardian tactics (e.g. barking, scent-marking perimeters), they are generally said to be capable of confronting predators the size of wolves and leopards.

More recently, Tibetan Mastiffs have been traded and bred all across the world. In China, a country which borders Tibet, these particular canines have become a status symbol among the wealthy. A property developer from China is reported to have purchased a golden- haired Tibetan Mastiff at a luxury pet fair in Zhejiang for approximately 12 million yuan (£1.2 million). The dogs are extremely loyal and protective, but are a breed not recommended for novice dog owners: they are intelligent yet stubborn to a fault and require strict obedience training and an understanding of canine psychology. A lot of breeders use these dogs as guards of farms, homes or other buildings; they tend to sleep for the majority of the day in order to offer effective protection in the night.

But there is a moral question about these dogs which now has to be answered. Due to the increase in demand, breeders have often used unscrupulous means to increase their ‘value’ to pot ential buyers. Photos of the animals are often photo-shopped to exaggerate desirable features, while some buyers have reported bringing new dogs home only to find that they lose their colour and much of their ‘hair’ after the first bath. It is clai med by many that some dog owners and inside- traders are keen to increase their dogs’ worth by m anipulating the prices, when no money actually changes hands. It is certainly viable that these rare dogs would sell for a lot of money – but is £1.2 million a bit excessive?

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1. Who around the world uses Tibetan Mastiffs, and for what purpose?

2. Why is this breed of dog particularly expensive?

3. Name some of the ways that dog owners may make the Tibetan Mastiffs appear better than they really are.

1. Give some evidence from the text which shows that Tibetan Mastiffs are hard to train.

2. Why ight h Masti b u a ymbol Chin ealthy pulation?

3 Ti Mastiff ould leav th Himalayan Mountains, which is where they were bred and where they belong” ow ou wi hi statement?

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10 Ukraine: Free Running

Free running – free yourself of fear!

Parkour is so popular because it makes ugly things beautiful. In desolate urban environments, areas ravaged by conflict, or places consumed by gluttonous poverty, people use the sport as a way to reclaim their environments and find something beautiful in the spaces they inhabit. In the Gaza strip, traceurs do backflips while bombs fall; in Russia, they scale skyscrapers and dice with death on the edge of terrifying drops. In Iran, groups of women have taken to doing parkour in parks, despite the necessity of keeping their hair covered and wearing loose, covering clothing even in the intense, spine chilling, heat. Finding catharsis in the feeling that nothing can stand in their way.

Here, in Ukraine, I’ve found the true meaning of making the ugly beautiful, indulging on the bitterswe et. Ukraine remains the piggy in the middle between Russia and Crimea, the people and civilians are scared and uncertain of their country’s future. Beneath that uncertainty, remains the beauty and indestructible spirit of parkour.

I’m sitting on top of a 2.8 metre- high derelict and neglected home, and I’m terrified. The doorframe mourns its neglect and the roof desperately begs for a release. Everyone before me has already jumped this thing, landing on the break steps below (The rotten truck, then, the concrete path). I have been sitting on the edge for 10 minutes willing myself to fall. I am shaking. I am not going to be beaten by this tiny gulf below me. Parkour –is not about flips and tricks, or being able to pull off impressive feats of gymnastics on the streets. At its core is a philosophy of self- improvement that validates individual progress above everything.

Fear is more of a blocker to most traceurs than physical ability. Actually jumping off something tall takes not just strength and technique but also mental discipline: you have to be willing to face your fears and commit to movements, trusting your body’s ability to take you where you want to g o. Some people find it easier to put aside their fear than others; I find it almost impossibly difficult. It would be easy to give up, knowing that even if I manage to conquer my lack of coordination enough to run up a wall, I’d still struggle with the fear of getting down again.

At its roots, parkour is as much about helping other people to achieve things as it is about achieving things yourself. This is what makes parkour special to me: when I looked around the fear and confusion that engulfs Ukraine like a prison, I knew there would always be some beauty in life.

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1. Using your own words, explain the discipline of parkour:

2 ording o he cl Ukrain i aying Piggy middl o whom?

3 ng ou o word xplain h is y h phrase: Parkou o opular t makes l thing beautiful”

1. What do you think is the purpose of this article?

2. The writer repeats the use of an oxymoron in the article, as well as using alliteration, metaphor and other language techniques. Highlight any examples in the text and annotate/write below the effect and impact the techniques create.

3. Imagine you are a writer for a teen magazine, how might you write this article differently? To demonstrate, re- write the opening paragraph to meet your target audience and style:

12 Pakistan: ‘I am Malala’

I come from a country which was created at midnight. When I almost died it was just after midday. One year ago I left my home for school and never returned. I was shot by a Taliban bullet and was flown out of Pakistan unconscious. Some people say I will never return home but I believe firmly in my heart that I will. To be torn from the country that you love is not something to wish on anyone.

Now, every morning when I open my eyes, I long to see my old room full of my things, my clothes all over the floor and my school prizes on the shelves. Instead I am in a country which is five hours behind my beloved homeland Pakistan and my home in the Swat Valley. But my country is centuries behind this one. Here there is any convenience you can imagine. Water running from every tap, hot or cold as you wish; lights at the flick of a switch, day and night, no need for oil lamps; ovens to cook on that don’t need anyone to go and fetch gas cylinders from the bazaar. Here everything is so modern one can even find food ready cooked in packets.

When I stand in front of my window and look out, I see tall buildings, long roads full of vehicles moving in orderly lines, neat green hedges and lawns, and tidy pavements to walk on. I close my eyes and for a moment I am back in my valley – the high snow-topped mountains, green waving fields and fresh blue rivers – and my heart smiles when it looks at the people of Swat. My mind transports me back to my school and there I am reunited with my friends and teachers.

Then I remember I am in Birmingham, England.

The day when everything changed was Tuesday, 9 October 2012. It wasn’t the best of days to start with as it was the middle of school exams, though as a bookish girl I didn’t mind them as much as some of my c lassmates. That morning we arrived in the narrow mud lane off Haji Baba Road in our usual procession of brightly painted rickshaws, sputtering diesel fumes, each one crammed with five or six girls. Since the time of the Taliban our school has had no sign and the ornamented brass door in a white wall across from the woodcutter’s yard gives no hint of what lies beyond.

For us girls that doorway was like a magical entrance to our own special world. As we skipped through, we cast off our head- scarves like winds puffing away clouds to make way for the sun then ran helter- skelter up the steps. At the top of the steps was an open courtyard with doors to all the classrooms. We dumped our backpacks in our rooms then gathered for morning assembly under the sky, our backs to the mountains as we stood to attention. One girl commanded, ‘Assaan bash!’ or ‘Stand at ease!’ and we clicked our heels and responded, ‘Allah.’ Then she said, ‘Hoo she yar!’ or ‘Attention!’ and we clicked our heels again. ‘Allah.’

Most of my classmates wanted to be doctors. It’s hard to imagine that anyone would see that as a threat. Yet, outside the door to the school lay not only the noise and craziness of Mingora, the main city of Swat, but also the Taliban, who think girls should not go to school.

13 1. Why was Malala flown from her home country? And where is Malala now?

2. What genre of non-fiction might this extract be?

3. Using ou o word xplain h Malal mean by a okish rl”:

1. What do you think is the purpose of this writing?

2 Describ the ffe o h juxtaposition we nsid and utsid Malal school:

3 ou own ord xplain hy aliban may hin i threat h Malala’s hool ends hope to be doctors:

14 The North Pole: Michael Palin

It's 3.45 on a Saturday afternoon and I'm seventeen miles from the North Pole. Somewhere, a long way away, people are doing sensible things like watching cricket or digging gardens or pushing prams or visiting their mothers-in-law. I'm squeezed tight into a small, noisy aeroplane descending through stale grey cloud towards an enormous expanse of cracked and drifting ice. With me are Nigel Meakin and his camera, Fraser Barber and his tape-recorder and Roger Mills and his pipe. With our two pilots, Russ Bomberry and Dan Parnham, we are the only human beings within 500 miles. Outside my window one of our two propeller-driven engines slowly eats away at a fuel supply which must last us another six hours at least. In little more than ten minutes our pilot will have to fashion a landing strip out of nothing more than a piece of ice - strong enough to withstand an impact of 12,500 lbs at eighty miles an hour. Below the ice the sea is 14,000 feet deep.

I'm sure I'm not the only one of us looking down on this desolate wilderness who hasn't wished, for an impure moment that the North Pole, rather than being in the middle of an ocean, was solid, well- marked and even supplied with a hut and a coffee machine. But the cracked and fissured ice-pack offers no comfortable reassurance - no glimmer of any reward to the traveller who has made his way to the top of the world. The Arctic Ocean, known to the Victorians as the Sea of Ancient Ice, stares balefully back as we descend towards it, reflecting nothing but the question: Why?

It's too late to ask the producer now, too late to begin to speculate why I so eagerly agreed to come here, and completely out of order even to mention that if we survive this ice landing we have only another 12,500 miles to go.

We drop low, running in over a tongue of open water, Russ staring hard at the ice as ridge walls taller than I'd expected rush up to meet us. Brace myself for impact, but it never comes. At the last minute Russ thrusts the overhead throttle control forward and pulls us up banking steeply away. He checks the fuel gauge and asks Dan, the young co-pilot, to connect up one of the drums for in-flight refuelling. Dan squeezes his way from the cockpit to the back of the plane, where he begins to fiddle around with spanners and tubes until the aircraft is rich with the smell of kerosene. The Pole remains 100 feet below us, tantalizingly elusive, probably in the middle of a black pool of melted water. Russ takes advantage of some marginally increased sunlight to attempt a second landing. Once again hearts rise towards mouths as the engines slow and a blur of ice and snow and pitch-black sea rises towards us, but once again Russ snatches the plane from the ice at the last moment and we soar away, relieved and cheated.

I make a mental note never to complain about a landing ever again. Russ circles and banks the plane for another fifteen minutes, patiently examining the floating ice for yet another attempt.

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1. In your own words, summarise what the purpose of this account is:

2. What rich smell fills the aircraft after Dan fiddles around a little? Can you describe that smell?

3. What tone is being created in this extract, and how can you tell (give evidence from the text!)?

1. Who do you think is the target audience for this extract? Can you explain your answer?

2. What literary techniques can you spot? Provide three examples along with why you think they might be effective:

3 ha i ffect f he ine: “The Arctic Ocean, known to the Victorians as the Sea of Ancient Ice, stares balefully back as we descend towards it, reflecting nothing but the question: Why?”?

16 Russia: A Brave New World

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1. In your own words, summarise what this article is about:

2 anguag techniqu i ng n he heading: pster gouts’? d hat th effect?

3. Would this article be enough to persuade you to visit Russia? Explain your reasons why.

1. Do you think this article would be as effective without the images? Explain your answer.

2. The title: ‘Brav Ne World lates o famou ovel thi vel s ut xplain you own words why this article has chosen that for a title:

3. How does the vocabulary fit the articles: audience, purpose and genre? Please provide 3 examples:

18 The Netherlands: The Diary of

Sunday 14 June 1942

On Friday, June 12, I was awake at six o'clock, which isn't surprising, since it was my birthday. But I'm not allowed to get up at that hour, so I had to control my curiosity until quarter to seven. When I couldn't wait any longer, I went to the dining room, where Moortje (the cat) welcomed me by rubbing against my legs.

A little after seven I went to Daddy and Mama and then to the living room to open my presents,

From Daddy and Mama I got:

A blue blouse, a game, a bottle of grape juice, which to my mind tastes a bit like wine (after all, wine is made from grapes), a puzzle, a jar of cold cream, 2.50 guilders and a gift certificate for two books as well as lots of candy and a strawberry tart from Mother.

At school during recess I passed out cookies to my teachers and my class, and then it was time to get back to work. I didn't arrive home until five, since I went to gym with the rest of the class. As it was my birthday, I got to decide which game my classmates would play, and I chose volleyball. Afterward they all danced around me in a circle and sang "Happy Birthday."

When I got home, was already there. Ilse Wagner, and came home with me after gym, since we're in the same class.

Hanneli and Sanne used to be my two best friends. People who saw us together used to say, "There goes Anne, Hanne and Sanne." I only met Jacqueline van Maarsen when I started at the Jewish Lyceum, and now she's my best friend.

Tuesday 20 October 1942

Dearest Kitty,

My hand’s ill king hough been two ur n w had h scar ould xplain h there v exting uish in ilding offi tupidl forgot o arn hat he arp o whatever called a oming o ll h extinguish sult, didn’t th to i until eard he und o hammering on the landing (across from the bookcase). I immediately assumed it was the carpenter and went to warn Bep, who was eating lunch, that she ouldn’t b downstairs. d ation ourselv th door so we could hear when the man had left. After working for about fifteen minutes, he laid his hammer and some other tools on our bookcase (or so we thought!) and banged on our door. We turned white with fear. Had he heard something after all and did he now want to check out this mysterious looking bookcase?

It seemed so, since he kept knocking, pulling, pushing and jerking on it.

I was so scared I nearly fainted at the thought of this total stranger managing to discover our wonderful hiding place…

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Wednesday 15 July 1944

Dear Kitty,

wond av abandon l my deal they em o abs urd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.

I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more"

Please see next page for questions.

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1. Provide three emotions that Anne might be feeling on Sunday June 14th 1942 and why she might

be experiencing them:

2. Provide three emotions that Anne might be feeling on Tuesday the 20th October 1942 and why she might be experiencing them:

3. Using your own words describe Anne’s diary entry from Tuesday the 20th October 1942:

1. Can you explain in your own words wha Anne’s ntry om l 15 1944 is about?

2 l extrac to explain h chang in ne on hy thi hang occur?

3 l ee o h extrac were ritten o nform he publi o the rro o World – How far do you agree with this statement?

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