1Read the following passage and make notes in an appropriate format.
Chocolate. There are few foods that people feel as passionate about – a passion that goes beyond a love for the “sweetness” of most candies or desserts: after all, few people crave caramel, whipped cream, or bubble gum. Chocolate is, well, different. For the true chocoholic, just thinking about chocolate can evoke a pleasurable response. Two years ago, my wife and I travelled to the Amazon. On one of our expeditions, our guide pointed out a cacao tree growing wild in the jungle. I had never seen one before. Looking strangely alien, dozens of yellow-green pods hung from the trunk and stems of the tree. Our guide picked one of the hand-sized fruits, stripped off the rippled outer layer with his knife, and handed us chunks of the fibrous white pulp inside – the fruit of the cacao tree. Two local children who had followed us into the forest waited impatiently for their own turn. With practiced hands, a girl of about six borrowed the guide’s knife, hacked off the covering from another pod, and shared a big chunk of pulp with her brother. Few people get to sample the fruit of the cacao tree. It was mild tasting, with a subtle, bittersweet chocolate flavour. Embedded in the pulp were dark, purple-colored seeds that, after being dried and processed, chocolate lovers like myself have come to recognize as “chocolate beans.” The cacao tree (Theobroma cacao) is a native of Central and South America. Today, it is cultivated around the equator, and can be found in the Caribbean, Africa, South-East Asia, and even in the South Pacific Islands of Samoa and New Guinea. By the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Aztecs had an advanced and powerful civilization located in what is now central Mexico. Many people believe that the Aztecs first developed chocolate. However, chocolate goes back much farther. The ancient Maya, who inhabited what is now parts of southern Mexico and Central America, certainly consumed chocolate. In fact, the word “cacao” is Mayan: as early as 500 A.D., the Mayans were writing about cacao on their pottery. Some think chocolate may be even older, dating back to the Olmec civilization that preceded the Maya. The chocolate of these Mesoamerican civilizations was consumed as a bitter-tasting drink made of ground cacao beans mixed with a variety of local ingredients, a drink that was said to build up resistance and fight fatigue
Answers
Chocolate. There are few foods that people feel as passionate about – a passion that goes beyond a love for the “sweetness” of most candies or desserts: after all, few people crave caramel, whipped cream, or bubble gum. Chocolate is, well, different. For the true chocoholic, just thinking about chocolate can evoke a pleasurable response. Two years ago, my wife and I travelled to the Amazon. On one of our expeditions, our guide pointed out a cacao tree growing wild in the jungle. I had never seen one before. Looking strangely alien, dozens of yellow-green pods hung from the trunk and stems of the tree. Our guide picked one of the hand-sized fruits, stripped off the rippled outer layer with his knife, and handed us chunks of the fibrous white pulp inside – the fruit of the cacao tree. Two local children who had followed us into the forest waited impatiently for their own turn. With practiced hands, a girl of about six borrowed the guide’s knife, hacked off the covering from another pod, and shared a big chunk of pulp with her brother. Few people get to sample the fruit of the cacao tree. It was mild tasting, with a subtle, bittersweet chocolate flavour. Embedded in the pulp were dark, purple-colored seeds that, after being dried and processed, chocolate lovers like myself have come to recognize as “chocolate beans.” The cacao tree (Theobroma cacao) is a native of Central and South America. Today, it is cultivated around the equator, and can be found in the Caribbean, Africa, South-East Asia, and even in the South Pacific Islands of Samoa and New Guinea. By the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Aztecs had an advanced and powerful civilization located in what is now central Mexico. Many people believe that the Aztecs first developed chocolate. However, chocolate goes back much farther. The ancient Maya, who inhabited what is now parts of southern Mexico and Central America, certainly consumed chocolate. In fact, the word “cacao” is Mayan: as early as 500 A.D., the Mayans were writing about cacao on their pottery. Some think chocolate may be even older, dating back to the Olmec civilization that preceded the Maya. The chocolate of these Mesoamerican civilizations was consumed as a bitter-tasting drink made of ground cacao beans mixed with a variety of local ingredients, a drink that was said to build up resistance and fight fatigue.