Textbook Review - In Focus A vocabulary, reading and critical thinking skills course by Charles Browne, Brent Culligan, Joseph Phillips
Author :
Charles Browne, Brent Culligan, Joseph Phillips
Publisher :
Cambridge University Press
Date Published :
2014
Number of Page : 106
Genre : Workbook
A. Explain the chapters one by one
Chapter 1
The first topic
of this book is gender equality which mainly discussed the equality of the sexes in society. This topic provides two texts each with
different types of questions and activities. The first text titled the Iron
Lady which tells the story of Margaret Thacher who became the first leader in
United Kingdom political party that was traditionally run by white males. The second
text titled what if the women ruled the world which explains the reasons why
women are often superior to men. The pictures given to both texts illustrate
the contents of the text well, especially the first one; reader can directly see
the figure of Margaret Thacher
Chapter 2
The second unit titled
a thirsty world which talks about water access, consumption, and future global
scarcity issues. Reader will find two texts; the Cochabamba water war and Water
worries. The Cochabamba water war is the event occurred in Bolivia where the
company was taking advantages of people in poor country by selling water
service. It shows one of so many events relating to water access. The text is
illustrated by the picture of masses holding board in demonstration. Black and
white color give describes that the event occurred was one of the dark day. The
second text contains the evident of human unwise attitude towards water and
reminding the reader to raise our consciousness about the way we treat water now.
Chapter 3
The third unit brings the topic of nuclear power:
Clean and bright. It main talk is the benefit of nuclear energy. The topic is
elaborated by two texts in this unit; green energy and the one energy solution.
Green energy discussed about a researcher, Craven, who consider nuclear as a
green energy. The next text is titled the one energy solution which mention
that nuclear is the key to avoiding a disastrous future by climate change. This
unit is not providing a picture which can illustrate the topic well, but in the
other part it gives a chart which shows the data of nuclear accidents in
Chernobyl and Fukushima.
Chapter 4
Free trade: cheap goods or good jobs is the topic in
the fourth chapter. It is focused on the social impact of free trade. Reader
will find the social impact of free trade on the two texts given in this unit.
The first text is the North American free trade agreement which discussed about
the advantages and the disadvantages of NAFTA in the world. We
acan also see the sign of NAFTA in the corner of the text and practice the new
vocabularies related to text in the practice part of unit. The second text is
free trade = no bargain which explained how free trade can be bad for develepod
and developing country as well.
Chapter 5
The fifth topic
brings the topic of online retailing: dissapearing stores that willl give the
informatiion of the effect of the internet on retail and other industries. This
unit provides two texts , None in Laredo and The end of store as we know it. None in Laredo is the text which informs
reader about the biggest city in US which has no bookstore. Unlike the other
unit, the fifth unit started to develop the materials by adding idioms question
in the activities. The next text tells about the development of store in the
world from traditional store until amazon that the world have now..
Chapter 6
Online addiction: too much fun is the topic that is
mainly discussed in the sixth unit. As what we had found on the previous units,
this one gives the reader two reading topics for practicing reading skills.
Internet addiction becomes the first title of the text that covers the data of
internet addiction number in the world. It also explains the characteristic of
people who gets the addiction symptom. The activities presented in this part of
the text about phrasal verbs to widen the vocabulary skills. The second reading
is titled fun, popular, and deadly. Basically it discuss about the negative and
positive consequences of video game, it also contains the statistic data of
violence triggered by video games.
Chapter 7
The seventh unit picks marriage around the world as
its topic. It is basically talking about the changing of marriage in society.
The books focus on the activities of increasing vocabulary and reading skills.
We can find such activities within the two texts given in this unit. The first
text is different ways of tying the knot and the second is changing views of
marriage. The first text content is about different ways for people to be
married and these have changed over time. It also brings the issue of polygamy.
We are served by idioms activity next to the texts. The second text raises the
current issue of same sex marriage. This current issue is discussed from many
points of views.
Chapter 8
The effects of overfishing is the issues brought by
this unit under the title fished out: our empty ocean. We can find the
information like the dangers of overfishing from the first text The Grand Banks
in unit eight. We can see beautiful picture of the grand banks in the corner of
the text. It also provides idioms activities and words in context. Reader can
also find the truth of that many fish species used to be widespread are now
threatened with extinction in the second part of the text in this unit.
Chapter 9
The ninth unit mainly discussed about the benefits of
renewable energy sources titled renewable energy: the green choice. The first
part of this unit shows us the picture of the scenery of Denmark. It is the
opening of the text winds of change which contains the information of how
Danish government realize that oil sources are finite and change the primer
sources to green power. One of the activities accompanied the text is the
practice of phrasal verbs and words in context. The second text brings the
reasons why renewable energy is expensive nowadays, but the less harmful
consequences that it gives are a great investment for the better future. The
text title is beyond fossil fuels.
Chapter 10
Inequality in a richer world is the title topic of
unit ten. It mainly discussed about capitalism, other economics systems, and
income equality in societies. The issues is brings by the two texts provided in
this unit. The first text titled the Lehman shock, a largest bankruptcy in
American history that happened to Lehman brothers multinational banks. Reader
can practice idiom vocabularies from the text and collocation. For increasing reading
skills, the second text provides the practice of understanding text, cause and
effect, and making inferences for the text of The Promotion of Health. It is
about the history of capitalism in the world.
Chapter 11
The eleventh unit topic titled the office of future
which discussed about telecommuting. This unit provides two texts as well;
high-tech companies and telecommuting. The first text is about how high-tech
Company has comfy-places for employees to relax at workplace and good
telecommuters. The activities in this text are talking further collocations and
phrasal verbs. The second text which titled telecommuting is about the
advantages of telecommuting for movement of people in the city..
Chapter 12
The last unit of this workbook is titled Social media:
Changing our lives. The topic discussed about the impact of social media on
politics and society. As what we find in the previous units, this unit also has
two texts which bring the issues related to the topic. The first text is the
Arab spring and social media which computers help revolutionary forces bring
about regime changes. Arab countries through the globalization of media which
helped spread the messages to other Arab countries. We can find the activities
of collocation and phrasal verbs next to the page of the text. The second text
tells about the history of mass media revolutions, the forms of communication
and how social media affects the world and societies with the title a networked
world.
B. Answer the questions below:
·
How the book
organized?
The book has 12 units with similar format. Each unit opened with
critical cartoon, a short
speaking activity related to the topic of the unit. After that, the topic presents 10 important words on
core vocabulary section to develop vocabulary learning skills. Reading skills
follows after core vocabulary and provides two longer texts which expanded
point of view on the topic of the unit. This is also followed by series
activities like structure, comprehension, making inferences, and identifying
opinion, facts, and assumption. This book also provides researching a topic
section to encourage students gather and sharing further about the issue
related to the topics. The final section of each unit introduces a quote by
well-known person on the topic area of the unit.
·
What is the
book best for?
As what the title of the book, this book
focus on vocabulary, reading, and critical thinking, so it is the best for
college student especially who is majoring in English language field like
English education and literature because the contents of the book is make us
practice to build our vocabularies by introducing new keywords or unfamiliar
words in every units. It also gives the reading text which fit the level of
college student with the hot and current issue to develop critical thinking and
comprehension.
·
What did you
like the best from the book?
What I like the best from the book is its
interactive media using apps and link. The books provide the apps and online
link to be accessed. In the website, we can get more information about related
topic such as movie or documentary video. We can get the access only by
clicking the link presents on the link box. This is making the learning more
technology friendly and fun.
·
What did you
like the least from the book?
What I like the least from the book is the
little number of question in each activity. It has only for about 2 till 10
maximally for each section of activities. For a workbook that number is too
little, it should be contain more question so the student can do the practice
by answering more questions.
·
What would you
like to add in the book?
I would like to add more pictures in the
book to illustrate more the topic that is discussed in the unit. I will also
put more questions for each section in the activities part.
·
On a scale of
1-10, how difficult was this book for you? (1=easy, 10=difficult) why?
I will give the book 4 out of ten. Because
the book is really well organized, it’s really easy for me to understand the
contents of the book, the diction that is used also familiar with daily
vocabularies but it’s not decreasing the function of to introduce new
vocabularies in reading.
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