1 Introduction A middle-way approach to academic reading 1+ Task introduction Economics focus: On the move 2 Academic achievement Text 2-1: The influence of class size on academic achievement Text 2-2: A case study: ShJnJng star Text 2-3: The Asian paradox: Huge classes, high score 3 Early human develoment Text 3-1: Interaction between nature and nurture Text 3-2: Capacities of the newborn Text 3-3: Hearing, taste and smell 4 The environment today Text 4-1: Acid rain in Norway Text 4-2: Skylarks in decline 5 Statistics without tears Text 5-1: Making sense of experience Text 5-2: What is statistics? Text 5-3: Descriptive and inferential statistics 6 Human activity &climate change Text 6-1: Extra-textual information Text 6-2: Common questions about climate change Text 6-3: Are human activities contributing to climate change? Text 6-4: What human adivities contribute to climate change 7 The global village Text 7-1: Introduction Text 7-2: The shrinking planet Text 7-3: Economic globalisation Text 7-4: Communily & conflid Text 7-5: The Sharing of SOvereignS/ Text 7-6: Converging or diverging? 8 The new linguistic order Text8-l: Thenew linguistic order