Reading Comprehension B1

Read the article and for questions 1–5 choose the correct answers A–D.

MICKEY MOUSE

Mickey Mouse was born in Walt Disney’s imagination early in 1928 on a train from New York to Los Angeles.

Walt was returning with his wife from a business meeting at which he had lost the rights to his earlier cartoon character, Oswald the Rabbit. Being only twenty-six and with an active cartoon studio in Hollywood, Walt had gone east to arrange for a new contract and more money to improve the quality of his Oswald pictures. The bosses from Universal Pictures said ‘no’, and since the character was copyrighted under their name, they could control it.

‘So, I had lost Oswald and had nothing,’ Walt said later. He knew he had to invent a new cartoon character. Then he remembered the mice running around the studio. As a result, he created a character similar to Oswald only with round ears instead of long rabbit ears. ‘I had this mouse in the back of my head because a mouse is sort of a friendly character, in spite of the fact that everybody’s frightened of mice, including myself.’ Walt spent the return train ride making up a little mouse in red trousers and named him Mortimer, but his wife, Lillian, thought the name was too serious and suggested Mickey.

When he returned to his studio, Walt and his head animator, Ub Iwerks, immediately began work on the first Mickey Mouse cartoon, Plane Crazy. The enthusiasm with which the small staff completed the project disappeared when nobody wanted to buy the film. Refusing to give up, Walt went on to produce another Mickey Mouse cartoon, Gallopin’ Gaucho.

However, late in 1927, Warner Brothers made The Jazz Singer – the first ‘talking film’. Walt soon realised that this was the end of silent films, so he stopped everything to begin a third Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie; this one with sound. To record the sound, Walt had to take his film to New York, since no one on the West Coast was able to do it. Walt offered to do the voice himself. He invested everything he had into the film. When finally completed, Walt showed it in New York.

1 In 1928, Walt Disney …   [A, B, C, D]

A set up his own business.

B invented Oswald the Rabbit.

C lost the copyright of one of his cartoon characters.

D was offered a large sum of money by Universal Pictures.

2 Mickey Mouse …   [A, B, C, D]

A was created by Disney in his studio.

B was inspired by a real animal.

C was supposed to be a frightening character, at first.

D had the same shape of ears as another cartoon character.

3 Disney’s wife suggested changing the character he made because …   [A, B, C, D]

A she didn’t like mice.

B his name was too serious.

C he was too similar to Oswald.

D she thought he was not kind enough.

4 The first Mickey Mouse cartoon …   [A, B, C, D]

A was a huge success.

B was made in New York.

C wasn’t played in cinemas.

D was Walt Disney’s first talking movie.

5 The purpose of the text is to …   [A, B, C, D]

A provide Walt Disney’s biography.

B show how the period of silent movies ended.

C show that imagination is enough to be successful.

D inform the readers about the history of Mickey Mouse.

Read the article about a strange accident, and decide if the statements 1–8 are true (T) or false (F).

WHO AM I?

On 3 July 2003, a thirty-five-year-old Englishman called Doug Bruce walked into a police station in Coney Island, New York, and told the police that he did not know his own name. He had woken up a few minutes earlier on an underground train, with a headache and a hurt hand and shoulder. At that moment, he had no idea where he was going, where he had been, or who he was.

Doug went to a police station because he had nowhere else to go. He was wearing a T-shirt, shorts and sandals and he had a backpack with a few things in it: a Spanish textbook, a bunch of keys and a map of New York. The police were puzzled. ‘We’d never had anything like this before,’ says Lieutenant Pete Pena. They sent Doug to Coney Island Hospital. On his name tag, the nurse wrote ‘Unknown white male’.

The doctors were surprised at how strong his memory loss was. Although Doug could form sentences, he remembered nothing about his own past and seemed to know little about the world. One specialist at the hospital, Dr Leonid Vorobiev, admitted that he’d only ever seen such a serious case ‘in the movies and in my textbooks’.

The hospital would not let Doug go until they knew who he was. In the end, hospital staff found a phone number inside the textbook in Doug’s backpack. It belonged to an ex-girlfriend’s mother, but when staff contacted her, she had no idea who he was. However, when Doug spoke to the daughter, Nadine, she recognised his voice at once. ‘Is that you, Doug?’ she asked. ‘I don’t know,’ came the reply. Nadine went to the hospital, told the doctors who Doug was, and took him home.

‘Home’ was a very attractive apartment in downtown Manhattan, which he shared with two dogs and three parrots. Doug discovered that he had previously lived in Paris, where he had made a lot of money working in the banking industry.

Now that Doug knew who he was, he had to deal with other challenges. He was worried about meeting his family and friends because he thought they would seem like strangers to him. However, when he met his sisters, they told him that he had changed. Before the accident, he had been very friendly and sociable, but rarely showed his feelings. According to them, he had become much more relaxed and wasn’t scared to let people know how he was feeling. And indeed, to Doug, it felt like his life had started all over again as he tasted strawberries, saw snow fall and watched fireworks explode for what seemed like the first time.

1 Doug Bruce was a rich American.   [T, F]

2 Doug had been learning a foreign language.   [T, F]

3 The police found the situation rather confusing.   [T, F]

4 The doctors decided to study similar cases in textbooks.   [T, F]

5 Doug’s ex-girlfriend gave the hospital his address.   [T, F]

6 Doug lived abroad in the past.   [T, F]

7 Doug’s family felt like strangers to him.   [T, F]

8 Dough was discovering common things once again, after the accident.   [T, F]

Read five texts below and look at questions 1-5. Each text is about a different subject. After having read the texts, choose the correct answer (A, B, C or D) for each of the five tasks.

The Death Zone

Would you like to enter the death zone? We're not talking about a computer game or going into battle, but a place that exists high above the sea; 7,000-8,000 metres to be exact. The death zone is a point on some of the world's highest mountains where there is too little oxygen to support human life. Although Mount Everest is the world's highest and most famous mountain, the deadliest mountains are Annapurna and K2, both of which have a death rate of 20 % for climbers who manage to reach the peak.

Where is the death zone?   [A, B, C, D]

A) Where most climbers fall on a mountain.

B) The world's deadliest mountains - K2 and Annapurna.

C) A height on a mountain where there is not enough oxygen.

D) At the top of the mountain.

Are you listening to me?

You should say "please" and ''thank you" and try to be helpful. You have to get up at seven o'clock in the morning. You can't stay in bed all day! When dinner is ready, I will call you. You should always wash your hands before eating. No snacks before mealtimes! You must always finish your homework, especially mathematics, before you watch television. It's important to listen to people when they're talking to you and not to keep asking silly questions. And if you can remember all that, I will pay you three pounds and fifty pence pocket money a week.

Who is talking to whom?                   [Teacher to pupil, Boss to employee, Host to visitor., Parent to child.]

Freediving

Can you hold your breath for a long time? Are you good at swimming? If yes, then perhaps freediving is the sport for you. Freediving can range from something as simple as holding your breath to snorkeling. The most well-known version of this sport is diving underwater without the aid of oxygen. Freedivers have been known to reach depths of over 200 metres, with the use of weights on the dive down and floats on the way up. The current world record for unassisted freediving is held by a Czech man, Martin Stepan, who freedived 122 metres.

What can freedivers use?   [A, B, C, D]

A) No equipment or bottled oxygen.

B) Some equipment but no bottled oxygen.

C) Bottled oxygen but no equipment.

D) Any equipment or oxygen they woild like.

Who did it?

At first I enjoyed reading the book. I like a good murder mystery. It's set in L.A. in the 1950s. A detective has to find out who's killing famous actresses. The plot was fine. It was the characters that didn't work for me. The detective was so slow and silly; the only thing he could catch was a cold. The actresses were horrible. The only mystery surrounding their murders was how they'd managed to live so long in the first the postman killed them because they got so much fan mail place and the surprise ending - it made his bag heavy!

Why didn't the reader enjoy the book?   [A, B, C, D]

A) The person doesn't like murder mysteries.

B) The reader didn't like the people in the book.

C) The story was set in L.A.

D) The ideas in the book were too slow.

What are you going to be?        [pilot, vet, cook, doctor]

Abby: What do you want to do when you leave school, Joe?

Joe: I thought about being a pilot, but I'm afraid of flying. I wanted to be a vet, but I'm allergic to animals. I'd like to be a sailor, but I get seasick. I also wouldn't mind being a cook, but I burn everything. And being a doctor would be nice, except that I'm always getting ill.

Abby: So what are you going to do?

Joe: The only thing possible - not to leave school!