English For Today chapter 19: The Wind and the Sun

The Wind and the Sun

1.1 Read the story.

The wind and the sun were having an argument about who was stronger than the other. ‘I am the most powerful!’ said the wind. ‘No, I am the most powerful!’ said the sun.

‘I can blow trees to the ground!’ said the wind. ‘I can push ships across the ocean. I can make tornadoes!’

‘Is that right?’ replied the sun. Just then, they saw a man walking along the road in his winter jacket.

‘Let's have a contest to see who is more powerful,’ said the wind. ‘He who can remove the man's jacket first will be the winner.’

The sun agreed.

The wind started first. He blew a gust of cold wind at the man.

The man kept shivering and zipped up his jacket. ‘Brrr! What a cold and windy day!’

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It started raining. The wind blew even harder and turned the rain into a storm.

‘Well, look at that! There's a heavy storm!’ said the man.

The wind blew its strongest gust towards the man, but the man's jacket stayed on. He zipped the jacket higher to cover his nose.

‘Oh! This is impossible,’ said the wind. He stopped blowing.

‘My turn!’ said the sun.

First, the sun was shining enough to stop the rain and storm. The man unzipped his jacket. Then the sun pulled the clouds apart and gently shone down on the man. Suddenly, it felt like a beautiful sunny day.

‘Wow. The weather is strange around here!’ said the man.

The sun gently wiggled its fingers and increased the temperature.

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‘What strange weather it is! Now, it feels like a hot summer!’ the man said as he began to sweat. ‘Oh, it's so hot!’

He removed his jacket and headed to a nearby tree. He took a rest for a while under the shade of the tallest tree.

‘I have made the man remove his jakcet. I have won!’ said the sun.

2.1 Fill in the blanks using the words from the box below.

snow, sweat, arguing, jacket, trees

a) The wind and the sun were __________ about who is stronger. b) The wind claimed that it could blow __________ to the ground. c) The sun said it could melt all the __________ on the mountains. d) The contest was to see who could remove the man's __________ first. e) The man finally removed his jacket because he began to __________.

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2.2 Write the answers to the following questions.

a) What could the wind do to show its strength? b) What did the man do when the wind blew strongly? c) What did the sun do first before shining brightly? d) Why did the man finally take off his jacket? e) If you were the man in the story, how would you feel about the sudden change in weather?

3.1 Language Focus: Comparison of Adjective

Look at the following words used in the text.

stronger, powerful, harder, cold, beautiful, hot, tallest

The above words are used to talk about the qualities or characteristics of a person or thing. These are adjectives.

Adjectives are describing words. They tell us more about people, animals, places and things.

Adjectives can describe the difference between two things. For example,

Adjectives can also describe something as the best or the greatest among three or more things. For example,

• The cheetah is the fastest animal in the jungle.
• This is the most beautiful picture in the gallery.

We use -er for one syllable word (tall) We add more for more than one syllable word (in-ter-es-ting)

We use -est for one syllable word (fast) We add most for more than one syllable word (beau-ti-ful)

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3.1.1 Now write the forms of adjectives of the following. The first one is done for you.

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4.1 Choose five adjectives from the left column of the table in activity 3.1.1. Write sentences using those adjectives and their comparative and superlative forms. One is done for you.