Gapped reading 1

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Strategies to answer the questions

1. Quickly read through the paragraph headings so you can see what they say.
2. Then look at the first paragraph.
3. Often only the topic sentence needs to be read carefully because the main idea and answer are there - you may be able to just skim the rest.
4. Sometimes, however, the answer is not in the topic sentence and the whole paragraph needs to be read more carefully.
5. If a match is not immediately obvious, move on to the next one.
6. If you are unsure between two answers at first, put them both in. You may be able to eliminate one answer later if it fits another paragraph better.
7. If at the end you are still stuck between two answers for a question, pick which fits best.

Things to beware of

1. There are always more choices of paragraph headings on the list than paragraphs, so be careful when matching them.
2. Watch out for synonyms - often words in the paragraphs and paragraph headings will not be the same; they will be synonyms.
3. Having a noun from a heading that is in the paragraph does not guarantee they match - you still need to read it carefully to check.

Online reading

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Tip 1The first thing students should always do is cross off the missing sentence that has been given as an example. It's amazing how often students waste time trying to fit this in elsewhere.  

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Tip 2Students should always remember that there is an extra sentence that does not fit anywhere. If they have time, the last thing they should do is check that the part they have left over really doesn't fit in any of the gaps.

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Tip 3As well as the referencing and linking devices mentioned in the lesson plan, it can also be useful for students to look at how the topics change over the length of the text and whether the text follows a chronological order. 

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Tip 4Teachers should insist that students get into the habit of underlining the language that helps them complete the task (e.g. expressions like 'after that'), and then underline the language that it refers/ links to (e.g. 'the birthday party'). Being strict on this in class and for homework will make it much easier on the students during the exam, and also makes it easier to discuss students' answers as a class.

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Tip 5A great activity for referencing devices is to write out some dialogue selected from a TV program, radio play or clip from a film, underline some of the pronouns etc. in it, and get students to watch/ listen for what is being referred to. For example, if a character says 'You can take it or leave it', students should listen for what 'it' refers to. You will need to make sure that the sentences you choose are not too densely packed in the text, maybe only one per minute of film/ tape. It can also be useful to choose sentences with difficult vocabulary, as you can then pre-teach this before they watch/ listen. The combination of this pre-teaching and a fairly straightforward task can really help the students understand the text, so it provides great motivation as well as perfect exam practice

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Tip 6As always, if students don't know they should guess, as a blank space is always zero points and there are no deductions for guesses.

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Tip 7There is nothing really to be gained from filling in the missing sentences in the same order as the text, so it is always best to start with the one students feel most sure about after having read through all of the gapped text and the missing bits (and having underlined the relevant parts, of course).

The Rise of Competitors and Compers

Key:

1. C
2. D
3. B
4. A
5. A
6. D

Gapped text key

1.    B

2.     C

3.     F

4.    G

5.    A

6.    H

0)      D

INFINITIVES AND GERUNDS

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verbs followed by gerund or infinitive

Gapped text key

1. D
2. G
3. F
4. A
5. E
6. C