Read this text very carefully and do the Written Comprehension exercice. 

You can check how to read in English.

Written Comprehension

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

She was considered as a liberal judge of the Court.

Early life and education

Ginsburg was born on March 15, 1933 and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. 

Her mother died shortly before Ginsburg graduated from high school. 

She then earned her bachelor's degree at Cornell University, and became a wife and mother before starting law school at Harvard, where she was one of the few women in her class. 

Legal Career

Although she had graduated first in her classes, she was turned down for numerous jobs after graduation because she was a woman. This gender inequality gave her a great force to fight for the rights of women.

From 1959 to 1961, she worked as a clerk for a  District Judge.

After that, she taught at Rutgers University Law School from 1963 to 1972 and at Columbia until 1980, teaching civil procedure as one of the few women in her field.

She also helped to establish the unconstitutionality of unequal treatment of men and women.

In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, where she served until her appointment to the Supreme Court. 

Ginsburg became famous for her fiery liberal dissents and refusal to step down. That's why she was nicknamed "The Notorious R.B.G.", a play on the name of rapper "The Notorious B.I.G."

Supreme Court

Ginsburg was appointed by President Bill Clinton and took the oath of office on August 10, 1993. 

Ginsburg was the second woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court after Sandra Day O'Connor and the first Jewish female justice. 

She worked until her death.

Personal life

A few days after Ruth Bader graduated, she married Martin D. Ginsburg, who later became an internationally prominent tax attorney.

When she was offered a job in Washington, the couple moved from New York to Washington, D.C., where her husband became professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center. 

Their daughter, Jane was born in 1955. Shortly after, her husband was diagnosed with cancer.

During this period, Ginsburg attended class and took notes for both of them, typed her husband's dictated papers and cared for their daughter and her sick husband.

Their son James was born 10 years later after her husband had recovered.

Ruth B.Ginsburg also suffered from colon cancer in 1999 and from pancreatic cancer in 2009.

Unfortunately, her husband finally died in June 2010.

In November 2018, at the age of 85, she was hospitalized after fracturing three ribs in a fall.

In July 2020, she announced that she had liver cancer.

She died at her home in Washington, D.C., on September 18, 2020, from complications of cancer, at the age of 87.

Ginsburg was a grandmother of four.

Exercise 1: General Comprehension

1. What kind of text is it?
2. What is it about?
3. Where does the 'story' take place?
4. In what century does it take place

Exercise 3: Right or Wrong? Justify thanks to the text.             

She lost her mother when she was less than 10 years old.

She married and became a mother when she finished her studies.

There was a majority of women in her class.

Ruth and Martin lived their lives in good health.

James was born in 1965.

She had 5 grandchildren.

Exercise 4: Answer the questions in your own words                    

a.  What were Ruth’s different jobs?  

b.  Do you think she was a stubborn woman? Justify (stubborn = têtu, entêté) 

b. Name 2 US Presidents quoted in the text.            

c.  How old was Ruth when she died?

Ask someone to correct your exercise.

Come and discover more about The US Supreme Court

The US Supreme Court

Listen to this interview of Ruth Bader Ginger

Listen to Ruth Bader Ginsburg