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Comprehending Texts
This is a Ready-Ed Publications' book preview. Before reading Aim High below, answer the question.
Do you know the name of Australia’s highest mountain? ______________________________ Read the text below. If you come across an unfamiliar word when you are reading, try to work out its meaning from the rest of the sentence.
• Aim High • A few days before his seventeenth birthday, London schoolboy George Atkinson was ready for the final stage in a special quest. He was in Kathmandu in Nepal preparing to climb Mount Everest. He knew that if he succeeded he would claim a world record. Only Mount Everest, a mountain that had claimed the lives of over 200 mountaineers, remained. Atkinson started his career as a climber at a young age. His father, an enthusiastic climber, took young George on his first climb in Northern Ireland when he was just six years old. George managed the challenging and very cold 850 metre climb. The next year at age seven he scaled the three highest peaks in Scotland, England and Wales with his father. In 2005 at age eleven, George surprised experienced climbers by climbing Africa’s Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania with his father. Perhaps the 5,895 metre climb gave George the idea of attempting the record for scaling the seven summits on seven continents. In 2007 at age thirteen, George climbed Europe’s highest mountain, Mount Elbrus in Russia. This mountain was 5,642 metres and involved walking and climbing on dangerous snow and ice. Two summits down, five to go! In 2008 George (aged fourteen) and his father scaled Carstensz Pyramid in Indonesia, part of the Oceania continent. The climb up the 4,884 metre pyramid was challenging especially since it rained every day and the pyramid consisted of sharp volcanic rock. With three summits conquered, George prepared to ascend South America’s highest peak; the 6,962 metre Mount Aconcagua in Argentina. He made it to the top later in the same year but this time his father didn’t. Next on his list was Alaska’s Mount McKinley in North America in 2010. Bad weather slowed him down with fresh snow falling making the slopes more prone to avalanches. However, he eventually reached the 6,194 metre peak. Two summits remained. The attempt on the sixth summit was made in early 2011. When the ferocious winds calmed, he climbed Antarctica’s Mount Vinson reaching the 4,897 metre peak. Last but not least in his quest to scale the seven summits was the highest mountain of all, Mount Everest in Nepal, Asia. Standing at 8,848 metres it has challenged mountaineers for many years. In May 2011, three days before his seventeenth birthday George stood on the summit and gained the world record for being the youngest person to climb the Seven Summits.
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