"A Tale of Two Cities"
Reading Lesson

Key Words

Below you will find a list of key vocabulary you need to know to understand the lesson. Click on each word to hear it and practice its pronunciation.

best: the most good
worst: the most bad
age: a long period of time in history
wisdom: the ability to think and act in a smart and thoughtful way
foolishness: behavior that is not smart or sensible
epoch: a particular time period in history
belief: something a person thinks is true
incredulity: the feeling of not believing something
season: a time of the year or a period of time
light: brightness that lets you see
darkness: the absence of light
spring: the season after winter and before summer
hope: a feeling of wanting something good to happen
winter: the coldest season of the year
despair: a feeling of having no hope
everything: all things
nothing: not anything
Heaven: a place believed to be perfect and happy after death
noisiest: the loudest
evil: something very bad or harmful
degree: a level or amount

Exercise - Key Words

Read the definition and select the word that was defined.

Reading

A Tale of Two Cities

A Tale of Two Cities is a very famous historical novel written by Charles Dickens in 1859. In the book he describes life in two cities, Paris and London, at the time of the French Revolution. The following paragraph is the first paragraph in the novel. If you are interested in reading the entire novel, you can click HERE.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."

► Listen to the reading

Questions

Instructions
Match the opposite words from the reading.

Writing

Describe and compare two cities in your country.

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