Faculté de Médecine d’Alger Module d’anglais 2017/2018

Sleep where would we be without it ?

Belive it or not, there is a « world sleep day »

This year its slogan was « sleep well, grow healthy »

Scientists don’t know exactly why we need sleep. But one thing they do know is that if we
didn’t sleep, we’d die. It’s as though we need a period of time each day when we don’t have
to process lots of new information. Our brain can go into shutdown mode, and we can
experience a different sort of reality.
Most people sleep for about a third of their lives. That is about seven hours a day. Of this 55-
65% is light sleep, then 15-25% is deeper sleep, and 20-25% is a Rapid Eye Movement
(REM) sleep. In REM, your body relaxes completly, but your brain is awake. Dreams occur in
all stages of sleep, but REM dreams are the most lively and colourful. They are the ones we
try to hold on to when we first wake up, but the harder we try the quicker they disappear.

However, there are some people who never sleep. They suffer from a rare illness called Fatal
Familial Insomnia. Michael Croke, a music teacher from Chigago, suffered from this. He died
in 1993 at the age of 42, having not slept for six months. He didn’t even sleep when doctors
tried to put him into a coma.

Sleeplessness has always been fatal. The Romans killed Macedonian King Preseus in 168 BC,
simply by keeping him awake.

We don’t need sleep !

Some people boast about how little sleep they need. Thomas Edison slept three to four hours a
night. He said : « a man doesn’t need any sleep ».

British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, said it was a weakness to need more than four
hours’sleep.

Napoleon took short naps on his horse. Similarly, Alexander the Great didn’t sleep much at
night but prepared for battle by taking daytime naps.

The Americain DJ Peter tripp set a record in 1959 when he stayed awake for 201 hours in a
glass studio in Times Square, New York.

However, most people believe that a good night’s sleep makes you feel better. It is said that in
600 BC, Epimenides the Wise, one of the « seven wise men of Greece », slept for 57 years.
When he woke up, he was wise. And there is a story of a French man, who, when asked why
he had murdered his wife, replied thruthfully, « she woke me up, so I killed her»

We know that if we didn’t sleep at all we would die, but do we need to sleep so much ? or do
we just like to sleep ? who really knows ?
Faculté de Médecine d’Alger Module d’anglais 2017/2018

I- Reading, comprehension
1- How much of our lives do we sleep ?
2- If you suffer from fatal familia insomnia, what can’t you do ?
3- What did Napoleon and Alexander the Great have in common ?
4- Why did a French man kill his wife ?

II- Complete each sentence by using a word from the list use each word once only

Apart, beside, besides, exept, instead, only, otherwise

- ……………. Selena decided not to take part

- Everybody’s here ………… for Lois.
- Clark is the boy sitting …………. Lana
- …………….from Bruce, is there anyone else who needs transport ?
- There are three other boys in the family ………. Dick.
- ………….. of answering, she just stared into place.
- I need the car myself, …………… I’d let you borrow it.

III- Put so, such, such a/an

- I wish I wasn’t …………….tired all the time
- Miss Wilson types …………..slowly. I could write faster !
- ……………. Few people, came that the meeting was cancelled.
- That was ……………..good film I’d love to see it again.
- They played……………… old-fashioned records, I almost laughed
- We had………………… awful weather in the north, we came home a week early.