myopia: short-sightedness
paediatrics: branch of medicine for babies, children and young people
Let's practise
While the majority of diagnoses of myopia in children used to happen around puberty, increasing numbers of children are needing glasses younger and younger. And it's children from comfortable backgrounds who are driving this increase. Why? In part, because they are wealthy enough to have access to all those seductive screens and gadgets, says Joanne Hancox, a consultant in paediatrics at London's Moorfields Eye Hospital.
Helen Carroll: from 'Keeping your child quiet with a computer could WRECK their eyesight' from The Daily Mail (The Daily Mail, 9th September 2014)
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What does the word comfortable suggest about the children's backgrounds?
1 mark
- Read the question and read it again. What is it asking?
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It is asking you to explain the meaning of the word comfortable and what it tells you about the children's backgrounds.
- What do we know about the children? Read around the text.
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Children from a younger age need to wear glasses.
Many of them are wealthy enough to have screens and gadgets.
- What does the word wealthy suggest?
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That they can afford to buy or be given screens and gadgets.
- Could the word wealthy be replaced with comfortable? Why?
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Yes because they both mean that the children come from backgrounds that can provide these things for them.
- Answer the question.
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The word comfortable suggests that the children who have these gadgets come from backgrounds that are wealthy enough to be able to afford them.
- Check your answer.