These 10 passages are designed to engage reluctant readers with topics that play to common interests. Within the passages themselves, we have embedded helpful ‘life lessons’ and themes of empowerment.

In formulating the comprehension questions (10 questions for each of the 10 topics), we have used verbs commonly used in exams, including ‘identify’, ‘describe’, ‘compare’, ‘explain’, ‘justify’, ‘recount’, ‘narrate’ and ‘apply’.

We have also included questions requiring inference and discourse-level responses to help students to practice their oral language skills in connected speech.