Next move 2 Reading (unit 1-3)

1 Read the text quickly. Then choose the correct answer.

What kind of text is it?

My favourite film is Shakespeare in Love. It isn’t a new film, but my parents have the DVD, and I love watching it. Tom Stoppard, a famous British writer, wrote it together with an American, Marc Norman. There are also some famous actors in the film: Joseph Fiennes, Gwyneth Paltrow, Colin Firth and Judi Dench.

Shakespeare in Love isn’t really a historical film. It’s a love story. In the film, Shakespeare is a young man. He is poor, but he wants to make money and he is trying to write a play: Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate’s Daughter. He finds a fantastic actor, Thomas Kent, for the part of Romeo, but Thomas isn’t the actor’s real name. In fact, Thomas isn’t a man. ‘He’ is a girl from a rich family, and ‘his’ real name is Viola de Lesseps. In Shakespeare’s time, there were no women actors. Young men played all the girls and women, so Viola doesn’t want people to know she is a girl. But Shakespeare learns Viola’s secret, and they fall in love.

In my opinion, Shakespeare in Love is a brilliant film. It won three Oscars in 1999. It’s sometimes very funny, but it’s also sad, because Shakespeare and Viola can’t get married. At the end of the film, Viola marries a rich man and she goes with him to America. But Shakespeare never forgets her, and he writes a play about a woman called Viola: Twelfth Night.

2 Read the text again. Match the sentence beginnings with the endings .

Shakespeare in Love

My favourite film is Shakespeare in Love. It isn’t a new film, but my parents have the DVD, and I love watching it. Tom Stoppard, a famous British writer, wrote it together with an American, Marc Norman. There are also some famous actors in the film: Joseph Fiennes, Gwyneth Paltrow, Colin Firth and Judi Dench.

Shakespeare in Love isn’t really a historical film. It’s a love story. In the film, Shakespeare is a young man. He is poor, but he wants to make money and he is trying to write a play: Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate’s Daughter. He finds a fantastic actor, Thomas Kent, for the part of Romeo, but Thomas isn’t the actor’s real name. In fact, Thomas isn’t a man. ‘He’ is a girl from a rich family, and ‘his’ real name is Viola de Lesseps. In Shakespeare’s time, there were no women actors. Young men played all the girls and women, so Viola doesn’t want people to know she is a girl. But Shakespeare learns Viola’s secret, and they fall in love.

In my opinion, Shakespeare in Love is a brilliant film. It won three Oscars in 1999. It’s sometimes very funny, but it’s also sad, because Shakespeare and Viola can’t get married. At the end of the film, Viola marries a rich man and she goes with him to America. But Shakespeare never forgets her, and he writes a play about a woman called Viola: Twelfth Night.

Read the text again. Complete the summary with one word in each gap.

Shakespeare in Love

My favourite film is Shakespeare in Love. It isn’t a new film, but my parents have the DVD, and I love watching it. Tom Stoppard, a famous British writer, wrote it together with an American, Marc Norman. There are also some famous actors in the film: Joseph Fiennes, Gwyneth Paltrow, Colin Firth and Judi Dench.

Shakespeare in Love isn’t really a historical film. It’s a love story. In the film, Shakespeare is a young man. He is poor, but he wants to make money and he is trying to write a play: Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate’s Daughter. He finds a fantastic actor, Thomas Kent, for the part of Romeo, but Thomas isn’t the actor’s real name. In fact, Thomas isn’t a man. ‘He’ is a girl from a rich family, and ‘his’ real name is Viola de Lesseps. In Shakespeare’s time, there were no women actors. Young men played all the girls and women, so Viola doesn’t want people to know she is a girl. But Shakespeare learns Viola’s secret, and they fall in love.

In my opinion, Shakespeare in Love is a brilliant film. It won three Oscars in 1999. It’s sometimes very funny, but it’s also sad, because Shakespeare and Viola can’t get married. At the end of the film, Viola marries a rich man and she goes with him to America. But Shakespeare never forgets her, and he writes a play about a woman called Viola: Twelfth Night.

Read the text again. Complete the summary with one word in each gap.

Tom Stoppard, a British writer, and Marc Norman, an ¹          writer, wrote Shakespeare in Love. The film won three Oscars in ²      . It is a love story. In the film, Shakespeare is a young man, but ³      , and he is writing a play: Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate’s Daughter. One of the ⁴        in this play is Thomas Kent, but Thomas isn’t a ⁵     . Thomas’s real name is Viola de Lesseps, a girl from a ⁶      family. Viola doesn’t want people to know she is a girl because in Shakespeare’s time, there were no ⁷       actors. One day Shakespeare learns Viola’s secret, and he falls in love with her. They can’t get married, so the film is ⁸     . At the end of the film, Viola marries another man and she goes to ⁹         with him.

Janet Nelson was my great-grandmother,

Dad’s grandmother. I never knew her,

but Dad says she was a very special

person. Janet was born in a small

town in England in 1912. She was

a clever girl, and she wanted to

be a doctor, but girls hardly ever

went to university in those days.

Janet’s family were poor, so Janet

left school when she was only 14 to

find a job in the kitchen of a big

restaurant in London.

One day, a young man called Henry

came to the restaurant. He saw Janet

and they fell in love. But they were

both very poor and very young, so

they didn’t get married for a long

time.

Finally, in 1933, Janet and Henry got

married. Three years later, they had

a baby boy, my grandfather, and then

they had another baby, a little girl

this time. Henry worked hard to make

money for his family, and after the

Second World War he, Janet and their

children lived in a big house with

servants. Then one day Janet said

to him: ‘Henry, I want to go back

to school, and then I want to go to

university.’

Janet was 35 years old, but she

went to night school and studied

hard. She had excellent marks, and so

she went to university and became a

doctor. She retired in 1980 and died

in 1990, 11 years before I was born.

Read the text. Are the statements true

(T) or false (F)?

1 Janet was the writer’s

grandmother.        [True, False]

2 The writer’s father knew Janet.        [True, False]

3 Janet was born in a big town

in England.       [True, False]

4 She was not a very clever

student.        [True, False]

5 There weren’t a lot of girls at

university when Janet was young.        [True, False]

6 Janet left school in 1921.        [True, False]

7 Janet and Henry met at Henry’s

place of work.        [True, False]

8 Henry was very young when

he met Janet.        [True, False]

9 Janet and Henry had three

children.        [True, False]

10 Janet died ten years after

she retired.        [True, False]