Advertising encourages children to lose interest in their toys very quickly.

You must answer this question.

1. Your English friend, Kim, has written to you asking you if you'd like to go to a concert by your favourite band, Red Stone.

Read Kim's letter, on which you have made some notes. Then write a letter to Kim accepting the invitation and giving all the necessary information. You must use all your notes.

Write a letter of between 120 and 180 words in an appropriate style. Do not write any postal addresses.

The only shoes I could find to fit me were in black leather.

any

I could ____________________ fitted me, apart from some in black leather.

es have been removed from the article, Choose from the sentences A-I the one that fits each gap (14-20). There is one extra sentence which you do not need to use. There is an example at the beginning (0).

It's true—We're all getting too big for our boots

Chris Greener was fourteen when he told his careers teacher be wanted to join the navy when he left school. 'What do you want to be?' asked the teacher, looking the boy up and down. 'The flagpole un a ship?' The teacher had a pout because Chris, though still only fourteen, was already almost two metres tall.

Every decade, the average height of people in Europe grows another centimetre. Every year, more and more truly big people are horn. continuingly, this does not mean humanity is producing a new super race.

【B1】__________

Only now are we losing the effects of generations of poor diet-with dramatic effects. 'We are only now beginning to fulfil our proper potential and are reaching the dimensions programmed by our bodies,' says paleontologist Professor Chris Stringer. 'We are becoming Cro-Magnons again- the people who lived on this planet 40,000 years ago.' For most of human history, our ancestors got their food from a wide variety of sources: women gathered herbs, fruits and berries, while men supplemented these with occasional kills of animals (a way of life still adopted by the world's few remaining tribes of hunter-gatherer).

【B2】__________

Then about 9,000 years ago, agriculture was invented with devastating consequences. Most of the planet's green places have been gradually taken over by farmers, with the result that just three carbohydrate- rich plants - wheat, rice and maize provide more than half of the calories consumed by the human race today.

【B3】__________

Over the centuries we have lived on soups, porridges and breads that have left us underfed and underdeveloped. In one study of skeletons of American Indians in Ohio, scientists discovered that when they began to grow corn, healthy hunter-gatherers were turned into sickly, underweight farmers. Tooth decay increased, as did diseases. Far from being one of the blessings of the New World, com was a public health disaster, according to some anthropologists.

【B4】__________

The fact that most people relying on this system are poorly nourished and stunted has only recently been tackled, even by the world's wealthier nations. Only in Europe, the US and Japan are diets again reflecting the richness of our attesters' diets. As a result, the average man in the US is now 179cm, in Holland 180cm, and in Japan 177cm. It is a welcome trend, though not without its own problems.【B5】__________A standard bed-length has remained at 190em since 1860, while the height of a door was fixed at 198cm in 1880. Even worse, leg-room in planes and trains seems to have shrank rather than grown, while clothes manufacturers are constantly having to revise their range of products.

The question is: where will it all end? We cannot grow for ever. 【B6】__________But what is it? According to Robert Fugal, of Chicago University, it could be as much as 193cm -and we are likely to reach it some time this century.

However, scientists add one note of qualification. Individuals may be growing taller because of improved nutrition, but as a species we are actually shrinking, although very tightly. During the last ice age, 10,000 years ago, members no the human race were slightly rounder and taller an evolution's response to the cold. (Large round bodies are best at keeping in heat.) 【B7】__________ And as the planet continues to heat up, we may shrink even further. In other words, the growth of human beings could be offset by global warming.

A We must have some

The TV programme was so complicated that none of the children could understand it.

too

The TV programme was____________________ the children to understand.

heir memory Choose the most suitable heading from the list A-I for each part (1-7) of the article. There is one extra heading which you do not need to use. There is an example at the beginning (0).

A An obvious need

B Gaining attention

C The odder the better

D Making sense of information

E Trade secrets

F Academic approval

G A change of focus

H Selected memories

I An ancient skill

Memory test

Jerome Burne talks to a magician who teaches children ways to remember facts.

The Greek philosophers knew about it and it could still dramatically improve children's school results today, except that no one teaches it. "It' is a very old technique for making your memory better. Try memorising this series of random numbers: 3, 6, 5, 5, 2, 1,2, 4. About as meaningful as dates in history or equations in maths, aren't they? Chances are you won't remember them in five minutes, let alone in five hours. However, had you been at a lecture given at a school in the south of England last month, you would now be able to fix them in your head for five days, five weeks, in fact for ever."

【B1】 ______

'I am going to give you five techniques that will enable you to remember anything you need to know at school," promised lecturer lan Robinson to a fascinated audience of a hundred schoolchildren. He slapped his hand down on the table. In his other life, Robinson is an entertainer, and he was using all the tricks he had picked up in his career. "When I've finished in two hours' time, your work will be far more effective and productive. Anyone not interested, leave now." The entire room sat still, glued to their seats.

【B2】 ______

When he entertains, Robinson calls himself the Mind Magician. He specialises in doing magic tricks that look totally impossible, and then he reveals that they involve nothing more mysterious than good old-fashioned trickery. '1 have always been interested in tricks involving memory being able to reel off the order of cards in a pack, that sort of thing," he explains.

【B3】 ______

Robinson was already lecturing to schools on his magic techniques when it struck him that students might find memory techniques even more valuable. "It wasn't a difficult area to move into, as the stutf's all there in books." So he summarised everything to make a two-hour lecture about five techniques.

【B4】 ______

What Robinson's schoolchildren get are methods that will be familiar to anyone who has dipped into any one of a dozen books on memory. The difference is that Robinson's approach is firmly aimed at schoolchildren. The basic idea is to take material that is random and meaningless—musical scales, the bones of the arm—and give them a structure. That series of numbers at the beginning of the article fits in here. Once you think of it as the number of days in the year—365—and the number of weeks—52—and so on, it suddenly becomes permanently memorable.

【B5】 ______

"You want to learn a list of a hundred things? A thousand? No problem," says Robinson. The scandal is that every child is not taught the techniques from the beginning of their school life. The schoolchildren who were watching him thought it was brilliant. "1 wish I'd been told this earlier," commented Mark, after Robinson had shown them how to construct "mental journeys."

【B6】 ______

Essentially, you visualise a walk down a street, or a trip round a room, and pick the points where you will put the things you want to remember—the lamppost, the fruit bowl. Then in each location you put a visual representation of your list—phrasal verbs, historical dates, whatever—making them as strange

George spent ages tidying up his room.

took

It ____________________ up his room.

"What is the width of this cupboard?" Rebecca asked her sister.

wide

Rebecca asked her sister ____________________ was.

You must answer this question.

1. Your English friend, Bill, is a travel writer and he recently visited a town which you know well. He has written a chapter about the town for a guide book and you have just read the chapter. Read the extract from Bill's letter and your notes. Then, using all your notes, write a letter to Bill, giving him the information and suggestions he needs.

Thanks for agreeing to check the chapter that I've written. Could you let me know what you liked about it? If any of the information is inaccurate, please give me the correct information! Do you think there's anything else I should include?

Once again, thanks a lot for reading the chapter Please write back soon.

Bill

Notes for Bill

Tell Bill what I liked about his chapter—places to visit ....

Give Bill correct information about

—parking in city centre

—museum opening times

Suggest Bill include

—map

—nightlife (give Bill details)

Write a letter of between 120 and 180 words in an appropriate style.

Do not write any postal addresses.

pm.