Reading in English at level B2

You read articles and reports on current topics and understand the writer's point of view. You enjoy contemporary literary prose.

• A1
• A2
• B1
• B2
• C1

This is how each text begins at level B2:

• CustomsThe pumpkin as heavy as a car

  Half Moon Bay is a coastal town in California, where about a dozen local farms grow 2,000 to 4,000 tons of pumpkins a year. Every year on Columbus Day, a Monday in October, it holds the Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off. The organizers call it the Super Bowl of pumpkin contests.

• ScienceWhy is the sky blue and the sunset red?

  On a clear day the sky above you is blue. A few hours later the same sun sinks toward the horizon as a yellow, orange or red disk, and the sky around it glows. Nothing has changed in the sun. So what turns one light into two colors?

• Short story · SakiThe Open Window

  Framton Nuttel had come to the country for a rest cure. His nerves were bad. His sister had given him letters of introduction to the people she knew there. “I know how it will be,” she had said. “You will bury yourself down there and not speak to a living soul. Your nerves will be worse than ever from moping.”