Reading
Weather Reports With a Personal Touch
Before you start reading, study the following vocabulary:
Accurate
Consider
Blow
Sticky
Promise
Wardrobe
Prague weather reports may be accurate, but they never give me the right information. Why should I care if it will be raining or snowing at 7 o'clock tomorrow morning? What difference does cloudy or sunny weather make? I don't need to know that. I need to know which coat to take or whether an umbrella will be necessary.
Consider a winter's morning. It's cold and gray. It has been snowing for hours. The wind is blowing against the windows. The snow is the cold, wet, sticky kind of snow. Why even get out of bed? I already know that the trip to work is going to be cold and unpleasant.
So I put on warm clothing and top it off with my thickest coat and heaviest boots. The weather report agrees that it will snow today. What the weather report does not tell me is that by 11 o'clock I am going to be miserably hot. I'm going to be traveling in overcrowded buses or sitting in overheated rooms.
Or think of that day early last summer. The day started out to be gray and cool. The weather report promised rain. Naturally, I put my umbrella in my bag. I got a light pants suit and short-sleeved blouse out of the wardrobe. I was ready for the rain. The light jacket would keep me just warm enough on a cool, rainy summer day, I thought. Of course, if it got a bit warmer, I would take off the jacket. What happened? The day turned out to be hot and clear. Only a light summer dress would have been comfortable. I took off the light jacket, but my outfit was still too hot. I was overheated by my own carefully chosen clothing.
I need weather reports with the personal touch. I want to be told exactly what to wear. The reports should specify a light dress or my very warmest winter clothing. Otherwise I cannot go on. I must tell the world that my life has been ruined by weather reports.
Questions
Choose the correct explanations...
- Problems occur because…
- Prague weather reports…
- The narrator…
- The narrator probably has problems with weather reports…
- The narrator's wish for personal weather reports is…
Are the following statements about the article correct?
1. The narrator has trouble getting up in the winter.
2. The narrator often finds that her clothing is uncomfortable.
3. The article says Prague often has bad weather.
4. The narrator pays no attention to weather reports.
5. The article says weather reports in Prague are wrong.