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4.12: Article- Procrustean Politics

  • Page ID
    47152
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    elephant-2798628_1920.jpg
    by chayka1270 on Pixabay, $\cczero$

    Before You Read

    Discuss the following questions with a partner or in a group.

    1. What do you know about political parties in the US?
    2. What are the political parties in your country, if your country has them?
    3. How do people decide which party to support or follow?
    4. Do people always support a party 100% of the time?
    5. Should political parties exist?
    6. What does right / left mean in politics? What ideas do they represent in the US? In your country?
    7. If you could make your own political party, what would be some ideas you would want to focus on in your party?
    8. Skim the next reading. What do you think is the author’s purpose of the text: to inform, entertain, or to persuade? How will that affect the way you take notes on the reading?

    Building Vocabulary

    For this exercise, find the word in the paragraph given. Use the synonyms and definition to help.

    1. P2: cut (v) ______________________________________________________________
    2. P3: injured by cutting (v) ________________________________________________
    3. P3: fingers and toes (n) _________________________________________________
    4. P4: in a clear way (adv) _________________________________________________
    5. P4: cover widely (v) ____________________________________________________
    6. P5: argument between two groups (n) ___________________________________
    7. P5: write (v) ___________________________________________________________
    8. P5: a record of someone’s death, usually in a newspaper (n) _______________
    9. P6: fight (n) ____________________________________________________________
    10. P6: reduce the strength, water down (v) _________________________________
    11. P6: support (v) (two answers) ___________________________________________
    12. P7: single number (n) __________________________________________________
    13. P8: list of people to vote for (n) ________________________________________
    14. P8: less than occasional (adj) ___________________________________________
    15. P8: old, obsolete (adj) __________________________________________________
    16. P9: problem, dilemma (n) _______________________________________________

    Vocabulary in Context

    There are some interesting phrases in this article. Find or guess the meaning of the words in bold.

    1. Tired from their journeys, many travelers took him up on the seemingly friendly offer.
    2. The tea party had their chance to offer a viable long-term political alternative to voters on the right. But the wheels of that movement have fallen off this year.
    3. In June, John Aziz wrote in The Week that Dave Brat’s win over Eric Cantor in Virginia was not a victory for the tea party; it was a “death rattle.”
    4. …most conservative eyes shifted to Mississippi to see how the main event of the tea party/Republican establishment feud would pan out a couple of weeks ago.
    5. When conservatives in Mississippi, and many other places, cast their votes in November’s general election, they’ll likely feel uncomfortably stretched when backing a Republican
      candidate they don’t fully endorse.
    6. …we do need more choices than the sporadic maverick third party presidential candidate.

    Go to the following link for the reading: https://noogatoday.6amcity.com/procrustean-beds-and-the-problem-with-a-two-party-political-system/

    Then come back to answer the questions below.


    Comprehension Questions

    Answer the following questions according to the article.

    1. What does the author mention is one of the biggest problems of having a two-party system?
    2. What do we know about the “tea party” from this article?
    3. What happened to the remaining tea party members and supporters?
    4. What does it mean when the author says that Kristen Day “sacrifices her ideological extremities”?
    5. According to the author, who do people in the US usually vote for?

    CEFR Level: CEF Level B2


    This page titled 4.12: Article- Procrustean Politics is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Charity Davenport.

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