Description exercises

Read the following description of the general reception of the Twilight Saga and fill out the gaps.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Multitudes of girls and women have swooned over the series and its portrayal of a “true love” relationship that triumphs over all obstacles and gives meaning to life. _________________________________________ its regressive gender ideology and fear that the Saga encourages young girls to emulate its heroine’s choice of early marriage and motherhood over college and career as the path to self-fulfillment. ________________ Edward, the series’ male lead, who has become the heartthrob of countless teen (and older) girls, exhibits the obsessive, controlling behavior often seen in potential abusers: he sneaks into Bella’s bedroom to watch her sleep, follows her when she goes out of town, spies on her conversations with others. ______________ forbids Bella to see her (male) best friend, ________ sabotages her truck and arranges for her “kidnap” to enforce the prohibition.___________________, many readers see Bella’s and Edward’s premarital sexual abstinence and Bella’s insistence on continuing a life-threatening pregnancy as propaganda for a religious-right, pro-life social agenda. ______________________________________________________________________________. I attended an academic conference on the Saga during which one of the organizers pointed disapprovingly to Bella’s choice of a rich Anglo lover over her working-class Native American alternative. _____________________, many of the women present, most of us educated feminists who hated what we perceived as the gender politics of the series, confessed that we were enthralled by it, not only racing through all four lengthy books in a few days, but almost compulsively re-reading them, often several times.

Read the following book review on a historical source and fill out the gaps.

Denis Judd and Keith Surridge __________________________ of the very unequal military forces which the British and the Boers brought to the conflict, including the significant contribution of some 30,000 volunteers from Canada, Australia, and New Zealand who rallied to the imperial cause. ___________________________ an accessible, well-written account of the successive phases of the war with clear coverage of its chief battles and sieges (and proves exceptionally good on Paardeberg). ____________________________ the peace negotiations which brought the war to an end at Vereeniging in May 1902. A separate section of the book presents an assemblage of bits and pieces under the heading "The Ambivalences of the War." Here ____________________ the "Pro-Boers" in Britain, "who managed to make a noise and get noticed far more than any other peace movement hitherto" (244) despite their modest numbers and internal divisions. The press reporting of this imperial war – which aroused unprecedented popular interest in an era when jingoism and the Harmsworth newspaper revolution were combined – is________________________________. Like the chapters on the literature of the war and the involvement of foreigners on both sides in the war, this subject is added on, rather than ______________________________________.