Warm Up
- Discuss the following questions with your partner/tutor.
- Do you prefer to watch sport or to participate in sport? Why? Which sports?
- Would you like to be a professional sports person? Why/why not?
- If you were to a professional sports person, which sport would you choose? Why?
- Find and correct the mistake in the following question . Explain the reason for your answer.
What are the abilities and characteristics that a profession sports person needs?
- For questions 1–8 read the text below. Use the word given in capitals at the end of some of the lines to form a word that fits in the gap in the same line. There is an example at the beginning (0)
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Training sports champions
What are the abilities that a (0)…professional.……. sports person needs? To guarantee that opponents can be (1)……….. , speed, stamina and agility are essential, not to mention outstanding natural talent. Both a rigorous and comprehensive (2)……….. regime and a highly nutritious diet are vital for top- level performance. It is carbohydrates, rather than proteins and fat, that provide athletes with the (3)……….. they need to compete. This means that pasta is more (4)……….. than eggs or meat. Such a diet enables them to
move very energetically when required. Failure to follow a sensible diet can result in the (5)……….. to maintain stamina. Regular training to increase muscular (6)………. is also a vital part of a professional’s regime, and this is (7)……….. done by exercising with weights. Sports people are prone to injury but a quality training regime can ensure that the (8)………. of these can be minimised. |
PROFESSION COME
FIT
ENDURE BENEFIT
ABLE STRONG TYPE SEVERE |
- Identify the part of speech of the root words then find other forms in the text. Identify and underline the prefixes and suffixes in each word. The first has been done for you as an example.
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Root word
(part of speech) |
Word/s in the text
(part of speech) |
Other forms I know |
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nature (noun) |
natural (adjective) |
unnatural, naturally, unnaturally |
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able |
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rigour |
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nutrition |
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energy |
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- Read the task instructions carefully. Read the tips in the box below and tick ü the ones you think are useful.
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o Think about the type of word needed in the gap (noun, verb, adverb etc.) and also if it is positive/negative or singular/plural. o Use your understanding of the whole sentence or paragraph to help you. o Match the words on the right to the correct place in the text. |
o Don’t change the word if you don’t need to. o Think carefully about any spelling changes needed. o Read the whole text quickly to get a general idea of the topic. It’s important to understand the writer’s viewpoint. o Make a guess if you aren’t sure. |
You are going to read part of an article about science fiction. For questions 1–2, choose the answer (A, B, C or D) which you think fits best according to the text
The state of science fiction
Journalist Eileen Gunn looks at how some leading science fiction authors assess the current and future direction of their genre.
Stories set in the future are often judged, as time passes, on whether or not they come true. But this misses the point – the task of science fiction is not to predict the future. Rather, it contemplates possible futures. For many writers, the future is a black box where ‘anything at all can be said to happen without fear of contradiction’, as the renowned novelist and poet Ursula K. Le Guin put it. ‘In other words, it’s a safe, sterile laboratory for trying out ideas in, a means of thinking about reality.’ Some authors who enter that laboratory experiment with plausible futures – envisioning where contemporary social trends and recent breakthroughs in science and technology might lead us. William Gibson (who coined the term ‘cyberspace’) is well known for his startling and influential stories, published in the 1980s, depicting visions of a hyper-connected global society where hackers, cyberwar and violent reality shows dominate daily life. For other authors, the future serves primarily as a metaphor. Le Guin’s award-winning 1969 novel The Left Hand of Darkness – set on a distant world populated by genetically modified humans – is a thought experiment about how society would be different if it were genderless. In the early part of the 20th century, science fiction tended to present a positive, utopian image of a future in which scientific progress had made the world a better place. By mid-century, the mood had changed. And this tilt toward negative, dystopian futures has become even more pronounced in recent decades. However, some authors such as Gibson believe that to divide science fiction into dystopian and utopian camps is to create a ‘pointless dichotomy’. He points out that Kim Stanley Robinson, for instance, has consistently taken on big, serious, potentially dystopian topics in his fiction, such as nuclear war, ecological disaster and climate change. Robinson does not, however, succumb to despair, but works out solutions in complex, realistic, well-researched scientific detail.
- What does the writer imply about William Gibson in the second paragraph?
A His approach was preferred to that of more literary authors.
B It took many years for his work to be properly appreciated.
C The stories he imagined could be seen as a kind of warning.
D Writing about the future was his way of understanding the present
- According to the third paragraph, it is William Gibson’s view that
A Current biases in science fiction are potentially damaging.
B Classifying science fiction in binary terms is unhelpful.
C Scientific knowledge among authors has improved over recent decades.
D Good writing can be found in both utopian and dystopian science fiction.