Comprehension Open-ended
Read the passage carefully and answer the questions in complete sentences.
| Hui Munli hardly planned to mother dozens of abandoned children. But when a friend who worked at the Wuhan Iron and Steel Works was killed in an industrial accident and relatives ignored his two orphaned children, Hui took in what would be the first of many homeless youngsters. She herself had been left alone at age 11 after her parents were sent to prison camps during the Cultural Revolution. Today, Hui, a slender, soft-spoken former school teacher and mother of a 13-year-old daughter, runs the private Green Shade Children’s Village of China. Some 73 children, anywhere from a few days to 20 years old, live there under the care of live-in “foster mothers”. She has placed 30 youngsters in foster homes. Hui finds the children on the streets and along the nearby Yangtze River. Four-day-old Zhang Chunsi was discovered close to death. A note was pinned to her blanket, saying her mother had died during childbirth. Hui took in the baby who, over a year later, is healthy and growing. “Most of the abandoned children are girls. In rural areas, many parents only want a male child,” says Hui. She and her engineer husband decided about three years ago that she should quit her job and start the orphanage. She used $1200 of her savings to refurbish the two-storey, 12-room building donated by the local village council of Yujiatou. She later persuaded the Wuhan municipal government to appropriate about 15 acres of land on which she wants to eventually build a new facility for the children. But she has to meet the monthly $1200 running costs herself. Hoping to raise more than $1 million, Hui has turned to donors in economically booming provinces and Hong Kong. Hui says that in future it will be a struggle to educate the children, since no schools will waive tuition fees for her. She reflects, “I have given the children their todays, but I’m not sure of their tomorrows.” | 5 10 15 |
1. When did Hui start to take in homeless children?
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2. Do you think that Hui’s childhood experience has inspired her to set up the Green Shade Children’s Village of China? Why do you say so?
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3. What do the “foster mothers” do at the Green Shade Children’s Village of China?
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4. Why was Zhang Chunsi abandoned four days after birth?
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5. Are there more boys or girls at the orphanage? Why?
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6. What job did Hui quit to start the orphanage?
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7. How long has Hui been running the orphanage?
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8. Where does the money for running of the orphanage come from? Which sentence tells you so?
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9. Who does the word “her” in line 23 refer to?
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10. What did Hui mean when she said, “I have given the children their todays, but I’m not sure of their tomorrows.” (line 23 & 24)?
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