Reading: Halloween

Halloween
This test comes from http://www.tolearnenglish.com - the site to learn English (test n°95523)

 Halloween is a yearly festival. Most people celebrate this day on the night of 31 October ( the night before All Saints Day ).
It is the one of the oldest holidays still celebrated and is a contracted form of the phrase All Hallows' Evening, also known as All Saints Day.
It is believed that the history of Halloween stems from a pagan holiday and has its roots in the Celtic Festival of Samhain.
The pagan Celts believed that on that night, the boundary between the world of the living and the dead overlapped.
According to their beliefs, the souls of the dead roamed the streets and villages at night.
The medieval festival of Samhain ( Samhain literally means summer's end ) was the beginning of the Celtic New Year. It was the biggest and most significant holiday.
Today, Halloween is the time of pumpkins, ghosts, monsters and other scary things. Dressing in costumes is one of the most popular Halloween customs.
Children, and also many adults, dress in costumes as witches, ghosts, vampires or other supernatural beings and they go from house to house, asking for treats.
They knock on doors and say : ' trick or treat '.
' Trick or treat ' is a term stemming from the Middle Ages and means - ' give us a treat or we'll pull a prank on you ' . So, people usually give out candy.
   Many people carve Jack - o' - lanterns out of pumpkins. The original Jack O' Lantern was not a pumpkin. He was a man named Jack and was a notorious drunkard and trickster. He was so wicked that neither God or the Devil wanted him.
 To kids, Halloween is seen as one of the best holidays.

 

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Questions:



1) When is Halloween celebrated? __________________
[ ]31 October
[ ]at the beginning of October
[ ]1 April

2) Halloween is a contracted form of the phrase __________________.
[ ]All Hallows Evening
[ ]Day of the dead
[ ]Ghosts Festival

3) What is Samhain and how does it relate to Halloween? __________________.
[ ]It's the ancient feast of the dead
[ ]It's the sun god festival
[ ]It's the feast of modern civilization

4) Samhain festival was popularized as the __________________.
[ ]Celtic New Year
[ ]Pumpkin New Year
[ ]American New Year

5) The Celts believed that __________________.
[ ]the dead returned to earth
[ ]the sun was a god named Samhain
[ ]everything had a spirit

6) Who or what returned to earth on October 31? __________________.
[ ]The witches
[ ]The souls of the dead
[ ]The vampires

7) Jack - o' - lantern it is a light made from a __________________.
[ ]watermelon
[ ]aubergine
[ ]pumpkin

8) Why do they say ' trick or treat ' on Halloween? __________________.
[ ]To chase the dead off
[ ]To chase the evil spirits away
[ ]To get lots of candy

9) The saying ' trick or treats' comes from __________________.
[ ]Ancient Egypt
[ ]The Middle Ages
[ ]From the 19th Century

10) What is the meaning of ' trick or treat ' ? __________________.
[ ]Give us a treat or we'll pull a prank on you
[ ]Give money
[ ]Keep smiling

11) Who was the original Jack O'Lantern? He was a __________________.
[ ]wicked man
[ ]good man
[ ]ghost

12) What do children say when they knock on doors on Halloween? __________________.
[ ]joke or sweets
[ ]crack a joke
[ ]trick or treat