Unit 7 : Excerpts
Have you ever heard the word ‘Excerpt’? Excerpt is a passage or segment taken from a longer work, such as a literary
or musical composition, a document, or a film. Before watching film, documentary, or
reading a piece of written work including novels, and biographies, people often go to
the excerpt of that certain work to see if they are interested in the specific content
(i.e. sports, dance, politics, history, etc) and if it is worthy of their time.
Thus, excerpts play important role in exposing important issues in brief and
making appeal to readers before they go thoroughly into the full text.
In this unit, you will learn about the feature of excerpt and explore the
information provided in different excerpts.
Excerpt 1: Zombie Tag
Wil is desperate for his older brother to come back from
the dead. But the thing about zombies is . . they don’t exactly make the best
siblings. Thirteen-year-old Wil Lowenstein copes with his brother’s death by focusing
on Zombie Tag, a mafia/capture the flag hybrid game where he and his friends fight
off brain-eating zombies with their mothers’ spatulas. What Wil doesn’t tell anybody
is that if he could bring his dead brother back as a zombie, he would in a heartbeat.
But when Wil finds a way to summon all the dead within five miles, he’s surprised to
discover that his back-from-the-dead brother is emotionless and distant. In her
first novel for younger readers, Moskowitz offers a funny and heartfelt look at how
one boy deals with change, loss, and the complicated relationship between brothers.
Source: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10775707-zombietag?utm_content=children%27s_pos1&utm_medium=email&utm_source=12_newreleases
Exercise 1 : Based on the excerpt above, identify if each statement is True (T) or False
(F).
______1. The story is about a boy who is hopeless about searching for his lost younger
brother in the wilderness.
______ 2. The main character in the story, Wil, is only 13 years of age.
______ 3. Fork is the weapon Wil and his friends use in the game fighting off brain-eating
zombies.
______4. Will is finally surprised because he finds out that his brother is back to life with
cheerful mood walking close to him.
______ 5. Zombie Tag is the first novel Moskowitz has ever written for young readers.
Exercise 2 : Match the similar meaning of the vocabulary in column A with those in
column B.
Column A
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Desperate ______
Siblings _______
Cope with ______
Summon _______
Discover ______
Distant _______
Column B
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
deal with /manage
order or gather
find out
hopeless
brothers and sisters
far away
Excerpt 2: The Google Boys
Google has been estimated to run over one million servers in
data centers around the world, and process over one billion search requests and about twentyfour petabytes of user-generated data every day.
Google’s meteoric rise to Internet stardom is one of the great business sagas of our time.
The sons of college professors, Larry Page and Sergey Brin – two brainy Stanford University
grad students who founded the company – say their goal was to make the entire world’s
information searchable and instantly accessible.
Google was co-founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were students at Stanford
University and the company was first incorporated as a privately held company on September 7,
1998.
Google’s first public offering took place on August 19, 2004, raising $1.67 billion, making it
worth $23 billion.
Through a series of new product developments, acquisitions and partnerships, the company has
expanded its first search and advertising business into other areas, including web-based email,
online mapping, office productivity, and video sharing, among others.
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Source : http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-google-boys/
Exercise 3 : Read excerpt 2 and answer the following questions
1.
How many servers does Google run over throughout the world?
__________________________________________________________.
2. What are the names of Google founders?
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3. What was the very goal of Google when it was first founded?
__________________________________________________________.
4. Were Google co-founders professors or students when their company was first set up?
__________________________________________________________.
5. What are the areas of Google business expansion?
__________________________________________________________.
Exercise 4 : Read excerpt 2 again and look up the meaning of the following unfamiliar
vocabulary
Vocabulary
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
G.
H.
I.
J.
K.
L.
petabytes
meteoric
stardom
sagas
brainy
entire
worth
incorporated
founded
instantly
acquisition
expanded
Meaning
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Excerpt 3: Can’t Stop Eating
Can’t Stop Eating is documentary film that follows the lives of several people with Prader-Willi
Syndrome (PWS).
The film is set in Gretton House, near Kettering in England, which is a government-funded care
home deliberately constructed to assist people with PWS.
Prader–Willi syndrome is a rare genetic disorder in which seven genes (or some subset thereof)
on chromosome 15 (q 11-13) are deleted or unexpressed (chromosome 15q partial deletion) on
the paternal chromosome.
The film focuses on a new resident, Joe Blackburn, who is 21 and begins the documentary
weighing over 30 stone (190 kg, 420 lbs) and with fears for his health. The plot follows his
struggle to integrate with existing members of the home.
The second resident that the documentary focuses on is Tamara Allwood, who was at one point
close to death from overeating but by the time of filming has gained enough autonomy to gain
the rights to visit her mother in London.
27-year-old Tamara has become estranged from her mother, who has never properly understood
Tamara’s illness, which was diagnosed relatively late in her life.
Source : http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/cant-stop-eating/
Exercise 5 : Based on excerpt 3, circle the correct word / phrase to complete the
sentences below
1.
2.
The film follows the lives of seven / several / sinful people with PWS.
PWS stands for Powerful-Woman Strategy / Piggy-Woman Synergy / Prader-Willi
Syndrome.
3. The location of the film is in Gretton House which is a government-funded care
home / government-funded hospital / government-funded hotel in England.
4. The film focuses on residents who are fear of being skinny / too heavy from
overeating / in very good shape.
5. Tamara, one of the residents filmed, has gained / has never gained / has been given
understanding of her illness from her mother for all along.
Your Turn : Now find excerpt of a novel, biography, or documentary of your
interest and share interesting issues thereof with your partner.
Love Me , Love My Dog!!!
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