Skills Test 5B Units 9-10

READING SKILLS

1 Read the texts and choose the correct answers.

Amazing coincidences

Lucky number

In the 1930s in New York there was a terrible accident when a train fell off a bridge. The photo that appeared in the newspaper showed one of the carriages involved in the disaster. The carriage number 932 was visible in the photo. Thousands of people who saw the photo chose that number for the next day's lottery - and to their amazement they won! If the accident hadn't happened and they hadn't seen the photo they wouldn't have chosen that number.

1 The lottery winners

a had all travelled on the train in the crash.

b chose the number of the train's route.

c were not surprised when they won.

d were very surprised that they won.

And this book belongs to …

Anne Parrish, an American writer, was looking at books in a second-hand bookshop in Paris when she found a book that she used to love as a child. She showed the book to her husband. Imagine their surprise when he opened it to find an inscription inside that said `Anne Parrish, 209 N. Weber Street, Colorado Springs'. It was Anne's old copy of the book that she'd owned as a child!

2 The book that Anne found in Paris

a was written by her when she was a child.

b was owned by her when she was a child.

c used to belong to her mother.

d belonged to someone with the same name.

A lucky escape

Walter Kellner, a German from Munich, had a lucky escape when the plane he was flying had engine trouble and crashed into the water. Kellner was rescued and later wrote about his lucky escape and won a writing competition held by the magazine Das Besteran in 1979. An angry Austrian man wrote to the paper and said that Kellner had copied the story because exactly the same thing had happened to him. The man's name? Walter Kellner! The magazine checked both men's stories and they were both true.

3 The German Walter Kellner

a survived a plane accident.

b was killed in a plane accident.

c complained to a newspaper.

d read a story about himself in a newspaper.

Lightning strikes… three times

If your father and grandfather had both been killed by lightning in exactly the same place in your garden, would you ever have stood there? For most people, the answer is no, especially given that the two family tragedies happened 30 years apart - his grandfather died in 1899 and his father in 1929. However, in 1949 Rolla Primarda did exactly that and he was also killed by lightning. The family has to be the unluckiest family in Taranto in Italy - or indeed anywhere in the world. If I'd been Rolla, I'd have moved house!

4 Rolla Primarda died

a on the same day as his father and grandfather.

b in the same way as his father and grandfather and in the same place.

c in the same place as his father and grandfather, but in a different way.

d in the same way as his father and grandfather, but in a different place.

It's all in the name

In 1911 three men murdered Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, and they were caught by the police the same year. At the trial they were sentenced to death, and they were hanged on the 26th November in London. They were executed at a place called Greenberry Hill. In a curious coincidence, the murderers were called Robert Green, Henry Berry and Lawrence Hill (Green, Berry, Hill).

5 Henry Berry

a was murdered in 1911.

b murdered a man on 26th November.

c received the death penalty in 1911.

d died after Lawrence Hill and Robert Green.

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2 Read the texts again. Are the statements true (T) or false (F)?

• The photo of the train crash was only seen by a few people. *

• The book that Anne Parrish found in Paris was the same one she'd had when she was a child. *

• Both Walter Kellners had similar plane accidents and survived. *

• Primarda's family moved house after his father and grandfather were killed. *

• Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey's murderers were executed in London. *

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LISTENING SKILLS

1 Track 6 Listen to the conversation between Sam and Debbie about the singer Adele. Are the statements true (T) or false (F)?

1 Adele's full name is Adele Adkins. *

2 Adele got a record deal after she uploaded some songs on MySpace. *

3 Her second album went to become number one in seven different European countries. *

4 Sam has seen Adele perform live. *

5 Sam's favourite song by Adele is Make you feel my love. *

6 Debbie doesn't want to go to see Adele's concert. *

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2 Track 6 Listen again and choose the correct answers.

1 Which is true about Adele?

a She hasn't won any prizes.

b She'd like to win two Grammy awards.

c She's won some Grammy awards as well as other prizes.

2 Debbie bought

a Adele's first album.

b Adele's second album.

c Both of Adele's albums.

3 Adele's first album

a sold 352,000 copies.

b came out in 2008.

c was released in Britain first, and then in America.

4 Sam went to an Adele concert

a three weeks ago.

b last summer.

c last year.

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COMMUNICATION

1 Complete the two conversations with sentences a-h. There are two extra sentences that you do not need.

a Do you think you could repeat that?

b What I mean is …

c Just a second, I haven't finished.

d Do you know what I find strange about it?

e I'm not sure what you mean.

f What do you think?

g Let me put it another way.

h I thought

A I thought the concert was disappointing. The conductor was awful and the acoustics weren't any good too…

B But you know…

A ¹__ The acoustics were really bad and I didn't really enjoy it that much.

B But I thought the orchestra played well and they played really good compositions. ²__

A Yes, I agree, the orchestra was good. But still… ³__

B What?

A Well, the conductor's supposed to be fantastic, but the orchestra was actually much better than him!

A We should go in now, the concert's about to start.

B Oh, I am sorry, I didn't catch it, I was thinking about something else. ⁴__

A Yes, I said the concert is going to begin soon so let's go in.

B Oh, right, sure.

A The programme is unusual, isn't it?

B Is it? ⁵__

A Well, all the more modern pieces are played first and the older pieces are played after. That's what is unusual.

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B Oh, yes, I see what you mean now. Yes, it is unusual.

TOTAL

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PHOTOCOPIABLE New Matura Success Intermediate © 2011 Pearson Central Europe Sp. z o.o.

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Name _________________________________________________ Class ________________________

PHOTOCOPIABLE New Matura Success Intermediate © 2011 Pearson Central Europe Sp. z o.o.

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