The Kingman Comprehension Series: Intermediate Level 6

By Dr. Alice Kingman and Jazzy Barry

About the Series

The Kingman Comprehension Series aims to enhance students’ essential reading skills and abilities to exercise critical judgment to help improve progressively their understanding of written texts.

A traditional and contemporary approach is used by the author with questions set in the formats of:
– Filling in the blanks
– Underlining the correct answers
– Multiple choice questions
– True or false questions
– Matching
– Drawing inferences
– Open-ended questions and
– Sequencing

Suggested answers to the questions are provided at the back of the book.

The series comprises six books catering to the levels and needs of the targeted students:

Elementary Level – Book 3 (for students eight to nine years old)
– Book 4 (for students nine to ten year old)
Intermediate Level – Book 5 (for students ten to eleven year old)
– Book 6 (for students eleven to twelve year old)
Advanced Level – Book 7 (for students twelve to thirteen year old)
– Book 8 (for students thirteen to fourteen year old)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Singapore
• Release date: May 22, 2023
• ISBN: 9781543774085

Dr. Alice Kingman

Having taught English since 1976, Dr. Alice Kingman is an experienced English language teacher who is now director of her own English tutorial centre and teacher of the Kowloon International Baptist Church English Class. Dr. Kingman attained her Bachelor’s Degree in the United States and her Certificate of Education, Master’s Degree and PhD. Degree in Education at the University of Hong Kong.

Book preview

Copyright © 2023 by Dr. Alice Kingman.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

www.partridgepublishing.com/singapore

Contents

Acknowledgements

To Teacher and Parent

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

A Princess of Mars

The Wind

The Secret Garden

The Little Prince

Five Children and It

Bambi’s Children

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm

Donal That Was Rich and Jack That Was Poor

Around the World in Eighty Days

Chatterer the Red Squirrel Runs for his Life

The Phoenix and the Carpet

The Old Wife and the Ghost

Marcus or, The Boy-Tamer The Troublesome Scholar

The Story of the Second Old Man, and the Two Black Dogs

The Coming of Pollyanna

The Pied Piper of Hamelin

Pride and Prejudice

The Count of Monte Cristo

Daddy-Long-Legs

Answers to Questions

Acknowledgements

First, I would like to thank Jazzy, the illustrator of the Kingman Comprehension Series, for her beautiful artistic drawings which bring every story she has worked on to life.

My great appreciation is also to be extended to my two daughters, Stephanie and Audrey, who helped me from the very beginning in the typing and formatting of questions for every reading passage.

A big thank you to my beloved husband, Matt, for his continuous support, encouragement, and professional assistance in the computerised structuring of the book.

I am also grateful to all my students for their contributions to this project, working on different passages, testing out questions, and providing invaluable feedback.

With no reservation, my heartfelt gratitude goes to my beloved late father, Joseph, who spared no effort in teaching me English since I was seven years old.

Thank you to all other members of my family who spurred me on to take this big step in realising my dreams of becoming an English-language author. I thank them for their love and patience throughout the whole process. Thank you to my wonderful church family as well for their uplifting prayers and support.

Last but not least, I thank God, my Heavenly Father, every day for His unfailing presence and spiritual guidance, without which this project would not have happened.

To Teacher and Parent

In my lifelong career as an English-language teacher, I have often been disappointed and discouraged to find questions set for comprehension passages stressing speedy location of answers or meticulous reproduction of the text. The formulated questions seldom encourage students to read between the lines or genuinely understand the writer’s choice of diction and intention of writing. In other words, students are often deprived of opportunities to think out of the box and explore implied meanings and examine the purpose of sentence structure.

Hence, it has always been my ambition to produce a comprehension series that can sharpen students’ skills in analytical discernment. The Kingman Comprehension Series comprises high-interest selections of different literary genres, from classics to renowned children’s literature, including fables, folk and fairy tales, poems, legends, myths, as well as modern realistic fictions. It is my hope that students will find the works of the outstanding authors in the books not only enjoyable to work on but also interesting enough to spark further independent reading amongst themselves.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Mark Twain

And besides, if you will I’ll show you my sore toe.

Jim was only human--this attraction was too much for him. He put down his pail, took the white alley, and bent over the toe with absorbing interest while the bandage was being unwound. In another moment he was flying down the street with his pail and a tingling rear, Tom was whitewashing with vigor, and Aunt Polly was retiring from the field with a slipper in her hand and triumph in her eye.

But Tom’s energy did not last. He began to think of the fun he had planned for this day, and his sorrows multiplied. Soon the free boys would come tripping along on all sorts of delicious expeditions, and they would make a world of fun of him for having to work--the very thought of it burnt him like fire. He got out his worldly wealth and examined it--bits of toys, marbles, and trash; enough to buy an exchange of WORK, maybe, but not half enough to buy so much as half an hour of pure freedom. So he returned his straitened means to his pocket, and gave up the idea of trying to buy the boys. At this dark and hopeless moment an inspiration burst upon him! Nothing less than a great, magnificent inspiration.

He took up his brush and went tranquilly to work. Ben Rogers hove in sight presently--the very boy, of all boys, whose ridicule he had been dreading. Ben’s gait was the hop-skip-and-jump--proof enough that his heart was light and his anticipations high. He was