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New Year's Eve
 
Reading Comprehension

This is a reading comprehension lesson to test your ability to understand information written in English. Read the information below and then answer the 5 test questions.
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Holiday: New Year's Eve

In the Gregorian calendar, New Year's Eve (also Old Year's Day or Saint Silvester's Day in many countries), the last day of the year, is on December 31. In many countries, New Year's Eve is celebrated at evening social gatherings, where many people dance, eat, drink alcoholic beverages, and watch or light fireworks to mark the new year. Some people attend a watch night service. The celebrations generally go on past midnight into January 1 (New Year's Day).

The island nations of Kiribati and Samoa are the first to welcome the New Year while Honolulu, Hawaii is among the last places to welcome the New Year.

In the United States, New Year's Eve is celebrated with formal parties, family-oriented activities, and other large public events.

One of the most prominent New Year's celebrations in the country is the "ball drop" held in New York City's Times Square. Inspired by the time balls that were formally used as a time signal, at 11:59 p.m. ET, a 11,875-pound (5,386 kg), 12-foot (3.7 m) diameter Waterford crystal ball located on the roof of One Times Square is lowered down a pole that is 141 feet high, reaching the roof of the building one minute later to signal the start of the New Year. The Ball Drop has been held since 1907, and in recent years has averaged around a million spectators yearly. The popularity of the spectacle also inspired similar "drop" events outside of New York City, which often use objects that represent a region's culture, geography, or history—such as Atlanta's "Peach Drop", representing Georgia's identity as the "Peach State".

The portrayal of festivities on radio and television has helped ingrain certain aspects of the celebration in American pop culture; beginning on the radio in 1928, and on CBS television from 1956 to 1976 (which also included coverage of the ball drop), Guy Lombardo and his band, The Royal Canadians, presented an annual New Year's Eve broadcast from the ballroom of New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. The broadcasts were also well known for the Royal Canadians' signature performance of "Auld Lang Syne" at midnight, which helped popularize the song as a New Year's standard. After Lombaro's death in 1977, prominence shifted towards ABC's special Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve (which had recently moved from NBC), originally intended by its creator and host Dick Clark to be a modern and youthful alternative to Lombardo's big band music.

Including ABC's special coverage of the year 2000, Clark would host New Year's Eve coverage on ABC for thirty-three straight years. After suffering a stroke, Clark ceded hosting duties in 2005 to talk show host Regis Philbin. Although Clark returned the following year, a speech impediment caused by the stroke prevented him from being the main host until his death in April 2012, Clark made limited appearances on the show as a co-host, but was formally succeeded by Ryan Seacrest.

New Year's Eve is traditionally the busiest day of the year at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida and Disneyland in Anaheim, California, where the parks stay open late and the usual nightly fireworks are supplemented by an additional New Year's Eve specific show at midnight.

Source: Wikipedia: New Year's Eve
From YOUR Teacher: New Year's Eve

New Years Eve is a night when many Americans usually go crazy and drink a lot of alcohol. In places like Japan, the night and the few days before and after, are spent with family eating traditional foods and usually drinking a lot of alcohol.
Video: New York Times Square New Year's Rockin Eve
New Year's Rockin Eve - Everyone in the world celebrates New Years Eve differently. Do you wonder what they do in America? The following videos are from the most famous New Years Eve show in the world held annually in New York City. Try to understand as much of the video as possible. Use a dictionary to look up words you do not understand.
New Year's Rockin Eve Part 1
New Year's Rockin Eve Part 2
Test: Reading Comprehension New Year's Eve

Read the information above. In the test questions below choose which is the best answer for each question. There are 5 questions. Good luck.
1.  In the Gregorian calendar, the last day of the year is which of the following?

a.  New Years Eve
b.  New Years Day
c.  Chinese New Year
d.  Lunar New Year
2.  Which island nations are the first to welcome the New Year?

a.  Japan and Singapore
b.  Kiribati and Samoa
c.  Tonga and Tuvalu
d.  Tanegashima and Yakushima
3.  Which of the following are among the last to welcome the New Year?

a.  New York, New york
b.  Los Angeles, California
c.  Honolulu, Hawaii
d.  Tokyo, Japan
4.  Where is New York City's famous "ball drop" held each year?

a.  New Years Park
b.  Grand Central Station
c.  Times Square
d.  Various Locations
5.  The Ball Drop has been held since which of the following?

a.  1907
b.  1917
c.  1927
d.  1937
 
 
 
 
 
 
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