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Level 2 – Pre-intermediate
Leap Year
In countries which follow the Gregorian calendar, every four years there comes a leap year. There are twenty-nine days in February instead of the usual twenty-eight. The 29 February is called a leap day.
We use the leap year to synchronise the calendar with the seasons. This is because it doesn’t take the Earth exactly 365 days to go round the sun. It takes 365.2423 days so we get a day approximately every four years.
People who are born on 29 February only have birthdays every four years. Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean that they grow older more slowly.
Different cultures have different calendars. Most countries in the world use the Gregorian calendar for civil purposes. But many still use their traditional calendars for festivals and religious occasions. Chinese people use a calendar which follows the sun and the moon. All their traditional festivals follow this calendar. The Islamic and Jewish calendars are important for religious purposes.
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Answer the questions below to check how well you understand the text.
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C2 Mastery
