Comprehension Passage 1

The school bell rang and the only thing that could be heard was the screeching of chairs being pushed back abruptly against the floor, and the excited chatter of students eager to get home. Everybody rushed towards the stairs, and ran out of the school gate. On my way out, I suddenly noticed a commotion at the school gate. Many pupils were present and some who were too short, stood on tiptoes. Out of curiosity , I made a beeline towards the crowd. "I did not do that on purpose!" I heard a boy say. I pushed my way through the crowd, and finally got to the front.Two big and burly boys stood facing one another and they glared at each other menacingly. I recognised one of them as a notorious boy in school, Ben. He had gotten himself into trouble many times, mostly due to fighting, and it looked like a fight was going to break out any moment.I was right. Ben made the first move. He punched the other boy in the face and said, "There, Danny, this is what you get for not saying sorry!" Danny froze momentarily, before kicking Ben in the shin. Both of them then started hurling vulgarities at each other.The crowd gasped when Ben whipped out a penknife from his pocket. He brandished it, and the shiny stainless steel blade gleamed in the sunlight. Danny held up his hands in defeat and backed away. However Danny was not fast enough and Ben cut his forehead! My eyes opened wide in shock as I saw blood stream down Danny's forehead. An ominous rage seemed to have taken hold of Danny and he drew in his breath with a long hiss. Danny then kicked Ben's leg a few times, before hitting him hard on the chest, causing Ben to fall. Ben's leg must have twisted as he fell. A sickening crack was heard and I saw Ben's leg lying at such an awkward angle that it was apparent that it was broken. Ben let out a shocked gasp before fainting. Danny too, clutched his forehead and collapsed to the ground.A few pupils called for the ambulance immediately. After what seemed like an eternity, we could hear the incessant wailing of an ambulance. Paramedics climbed out of the ambulance, and ran towards Ben and Danny. The paramedics' eyes widened in shock when they saw the horrendous bloodstains on Danny's clothes. They carried both boys onto the stretchers and drove off. The crowd slowly dispersed, with some students shaking their heads as they walked away.The next day, our principal, Mrs Tan, talked about the fight. She said that the boys were lucky to have got to the hospital in the nick of time. Both boys would be suspended for a month as a result of their recalcitrant behaviour. Mrs Tan also told us not to follow in their footsteps. Ben and Danny were punished for their errant act and I hoped that I would never have to witness such a gruesome incident ever again.

Special Thanks to My Teacher, Mr Ivan Ng for this story! 

The End of The World

An hour was left to the end of the world announced by the Mayans. People were shivering in fear what would happen in the next hour. Some people quickly gathered with their families trying to have a late dinner together the last time, some people quickly hide in bomb shelters in Tuition centres and others were mostly still laughing about the end of the world happening. "The world is really going to end as our professional weather forecasters had forecasted the weather for tomorrow and it seemed that Singapore is really going to be destroyed in just an hour!" the Prime Minister of Singapore, Mr Lee Hsien Loong said with tears welled up in his eyes. Time slowly passed by. It was 2359. People hugged their family members, trying to protect them if the end of the world really happens and it really happens. The clock strike midnight. The television broadcast the destruction of Singapore iconic sculptures such as the Merlion, the Esplanade, Sentosa and many more. Slowly, a tsunami occured and flooded the whole Singapore. Survivors were wondering what will happen next...

Funny happenings in India

"Pupils, the bus is arriving soon! Hurry up!" our teacher, Mrs Jenny announced to all the pupils who were still changing into their tee-shirts in their hotel rooms. Tom and I shared a hotel room together and last night, we had a whale of a time watching Youtube videos through his smartphone which connected to the hotel's wifi and we woke up late due to that. Just then, the bus arrived and came to a halt."Pupils, board on the bus! We are going to the great Mayan Zoo!" the bus driver said with a grin. We cheered loudly as we are going to the Mayan Zoo, that means that we have a opportunity to interact with the animals as India Zoos animals are out of their enclosures, except those carnivores. Just then, something funny happened. As we were sitted down in the bus, we heard a funny squealing sound coming from the top of the bus with some bangs on the metal tip of the bus. "A ghost! Everybody hide!" our class most notorious pupil, Boon Kia shouted with delight. Everyone in the bus quickly unbuckled their seat belts and squatted down in front of their seats except for me and some pupils. "Quiet! Let me check what is that!" Mrs Jenny shouted in fury. When she walked out of the bus and looked at the top of the bus, she screamed in horror. The whole class laughed. Mrs Jenny quickly ran into the bus and told the bus driver about it. "Driver, driver. A monkey!" she said with hiccups. "A monkey? That's impossible! How can it be a monkey!" the bus driver giggled and then he went out of the bus checking what was at the top of a bus. "Haha! That's a meerkat! So cute!" the bus driver pointed at the meerkat giggling. Soon, the meerkat jumped down from the bus and climbed up to a tree. The bus driver then came into the bus explaining what had happened and he drove the bus away to the zoo.
Just then, something funny happened again. One of the pupils said that he spotted a elephant outside a mama shop. The whole class turned their heads around and it was really a elephant. " I guess, this is what the India president wants it to be like this..." the bus driver said in curiosity.

Unluckiness in America

"Show me your passports!" demanded the security guard who was in charge of the arrival checkpoint for tourists in America. My family and I arrived America with our big heavy suitcases and we were hurrying to get a hotel room to put down our suitcases down when a security guard demanded our passports. We have no choice but to show him our passports. "Lim Ah Seng, Lim Boon Choy, Lim Ah Boon, Mary Kok" the security guard pronounced our names for checking with a paper that he was holding to. Just then, the security guard took out his walkie talkie and said a few words through the walkie talkie unknown to us. Minutes passed by, suddenly, a group of policemen surrounded us. "Lim Ah Seng, you are guilty of importing drugs to America! Catch him!" one of the policemen who was Chinese said angrily. With the other Caucasian policemen about to arrest our father, we were puzzled and tried to surround our father to protect him from being arrested by the police. "Why do you want to catch my husband? What have he done? Tell me!" my mother demanded in Chinese loudly. "Check their suitcases!" one of the Caucasian policemen shouted loudly, with saliva spitted on our faces. "Yuck!" I shouted with disguse. Just then, my father was getting angry and he shouted loudly, "What do you want from me! I've had enough of all of you!" my father then gave one of the policemen a punch in the faces, so do others. All policemen groaned on the concrete floor of the checkpoint. Just then, a group of about 20 policemen slowly surrounded us.

Singlish or English?!

Singlish is a commonly used language for most Singaporeans. Words like "Shiok", "Leh" , "Lah" , "Loh", is the most common words that you might have listened before, right? They are the short terms of some words such as "Relaxing" for "Shiok", " Can a not?" for "Leh" . But, I think that those Singlish words are quite nonsensical to use when you speak to a Caucasian using those words. They simply do not understand what are you talking about and they might think you are crazy and call the police to report about it. Worse situations if you are very Singlish and happen to meet a Caucasian cilent to discuss over a million dollar deal, I bet your boss might blame you for losing the deal and retrench you from the job after that!

So, let's speak proper English, not proper Singlish. Singlish is a very terrible, terrifying language, you may use it to communicate with Singaporeans, but don't use it to communicate with Caucasians.  

Copyright

In this world, there are many types of entertainment such as games, movies, music and many more. But in all types of entertainment, I love music the most, especially music by PSY, a famous Korean singer who sang the Gangnam style, a song which hit billion views in Youtube. The thing I loved his music the most is because, they sound interesting and there are different tunes of audio played in the music. Many youtubers liked to adapt some parts of the Gangnam style song to make videos to let us enjoy! However, I feel that it is not right to do so. Because, they did not seek permission from PSY to use the music. This is considered copyright as they are infringing it. They should make their own music and tune if they need music to make a video. Some other people, who just saved the whole video and simply post it again in Youtube, must be totally disgraceful of themselves! The video is not made by them, the video's source is not clear, who would want to watch their video? There is one youtube channel that I hate the most, which infringes copyright all the time, Samuel Koh, who posted Mediacorp drama episodes on Youtube without any valid permission from Mediacorp. I think that those copyright-ers should be punished and brought to justice for those people whose products are being copyrighted by them!

An Explosion

The marketplace was brimming with customers as it was the peak hours of the day. The snake-like queues at the food centre were lengthening almost every minute. The atmosphere at the food centre was oppressively hot as there was no air conditioning. Patrons were chatting nineteen to the dozen and all the chitter chatter could be heard clearly as they tucked into their scrumptious food, eating and drinking with gusto.

I was queuing impatiently in front of a stall selling noodles. I even tapped my foot on the floor to show my impatience as I had been waiting for about half an hour! Suddenly, a cruel explosion pierced through the air and a powerful blast ripped through the food centre. The concrete floor gave way, throwing patrons off their seats. The standing ones fell on top of one another like dominoes falling. An obese man whom I presume twice of my father's weight fell on me, squashing all the air out of me. Patrons hung precariously onto the jagged edges of the torn concrete floor that had cut deeply into their hands and legs. 

Pandemonium broke out. Screams could be heard, loudly and clear, and patrons on the first level ran helter-skelter for their precious lives, fearing the building might collapse any time. "Run for your precious lives! Run!" patrons screamed as the building collapse. After the explosion, some patrons huddled along the roadside, trying to regain their composure as the others trudged through the streets, searching for their loved ones. A grisly scene of bodies that were charred beyond recognition and bloodstained corpse made some of the patrons sad and cried. Dazed and concussed, injured patrons staggered groggily along the roads, waiting desperately for medical attention.

Just then, the siren wailed down the street. The civil defence officers rushed the victims who had suffered terrible lacerations and burns to the hospital and administered first aid to the lightly wounded victims at the scene. The firefighters and civil defence officers spent hours sifting the smouldering rubble to look for survivors while policemen spent hours looking for evidence of the bomb planted and kept a lookout for suspicious characters at the scene. It was chaotic at the hospital as the maimed and injured streamed in. Medical personnel was then summoned back. Family members cried as their loved ones died brutally. 

The news reported about the explosion on television on the very same day of the incident. The blast took away 126 lives, left 217 injured and caused million of dollars of damage. It seemed to be a reminiscent of the 11 September attack in USA though on a vastly smaller scale. The explosion had rocked the whole nation and was brought to the attention of the whole world, bringing the governments of other countries to take measures to prevent such terrorist attacks. Most importantly, I escaped from the jaws of death and survived this ordeal.