Exercise 1: Read and choose the correct answer.
The first great collector of Canadian folk traditions was Marius Barbeau, who oversaw the
preservation of thousands of texts in what is now the National Museum of Canada. Fearing that
these traditions would disappear unless gathered and catalogued, Barbeau preserved the folklore
and folk songs of cultures ranging from rural Quebec to the Tsimshian Indians of British Columbia.
These folkways— songs, dialects, legends, tall tales, riddles, and children's rhymes-were all part of
Canada's traditional rural experience. They provided evidence of the everyday life of the people
that was far richer than that in most other historical texts.
Which sentence below best expresses the essential information in the highlighted sentence in
the paragraph? Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out essential
information.
A. There is a lot of information in historical texts, but most of it does not deal with real life.
B. Canada's folkways give us a much better description of daily life than most histories do.
C. The texts collected by Barbeau reveal that some rural Canadians were richer than others.
D. The Canadian people provided a lot of materials that illustrate their traditional values.