Reading the text and filling the blanks. 2 I think I got serious about this only recently when I ran into one of my former students, fresh from an excursion to Europe. “How was it?” I asked, full of earnest anticipation. 3 She nodded three or four times, searched the heavens for the right words, and then exclaimed, “It was, like, whoa!” 4 And that was it. The civilization of Greece and the glory of Roman architecture were captured in a condensed non-statement. My student’s “whoa!” was exceeded only by my head-shaking distress. 5 There are many different stories about the downturn in the proper use of English. Surely students should be able to distinguish between their / there / they’re or the distinctive difference between complimentary and complementary. They unfairly bear the bulk of the criticism for these knowledge deficits because there is a sense that they should know better. 6 Students are not dumb, but they are being misled everywhere they look and listen. For example, signs in grocery stores point them to the stationary, even though the actual stationery items – pads, albums and notebooks – are not nailed down. Friends and loved ones often proclaim they’ve just ate when, in fact, they’ve just eaten. Therefore, it doesn’t make any sense to criticize our students. 7 Blame for the scandal of this language deficit should be thrust upon our schools, which should be setting high standards of English language proficiency. Instead, they only teach a little grammar and even less advanced vocabulary. Moreover, the younger teachers themselves evidently have little knowledge of these vital structures of language because they also went without exposure to them. Schools fail to adequately teach the essential framework of language, accurate grammar and proper vocabulary, while they should take the responsibility of pushing the young onto the path of competent communication. 1 t he civilization of Greece and the glory of Roman architecture” exactly refer to ______________________. 2. the function of paragraph 2 to paragraph 5 is to ________________________________. 3. Write down the thesis statement of the paragraph 7 ______________________________________. 4. According to this paragraph 7, who should bear the bulk of criticisms of the student’s language inadequacy. _________________________________________.