Hobbies and Interests

The unit opens with three drawings of young people doing what they love. Here is what each shows, and something you could say about it.

Picture	The hobby	Something to say
A boy kneeling on the floor, coloring a picture of a temple under a blue sky	painting and drawing	He has painted the sky and is now coloring the temple and the green below. Painting lets him show what he sees in his own way.
A girl in a cultural dress dancing, a boy beside her playing the madal	dancing and folk music	They are enjoying a traditional dance. Dancing keeps the body fit and keeps a culture’s songs alive.
A boy singing into a microphone while he plays the madal	singing and playing an instrument	He is singing and keeping the beat at the same time, which takes a lot of practice.

What kind of text it is

The text is an informative article, the kind found on a website or in a magazine. It starts with a short introduction, then gives each hobby a heading of its own and a few paragraphs: what the hobby is, why it is good, and how to start. It talks straight to the reader (“you can…”, “simply head to…”), which makes it friendly and easy to read.

The article, part by part

The introduction

Hobbies are more than fun, the writer says: they ignite (set on fire, start up) our creativity and help us discover hidden talents, things we are good at without knowing it. Choosing one can be hard, because you want something you enjoy alone, but perhaps also something to share with friends.

People differ: some like the outdoors (fishing, camping, hunting, hiking), others stay indoors with a good book or online courses that hone (sharpen) their skills. Which hobbies are popular also depends on the person and on their culture; the writer gives the example of fishing in England and hiking in China. The best news: most of the hobbies on the list cost little, and the ones that need learning are easy to pick up.

Reading

Reading is popular in almost every culture, and it is a way of improving yourself as well as having fun. Whether you read for information or entertainment, there is a book for you among the many genres (kinds of writing: adventure, mystery, science, poetry…). It needs no special gear: a library or a free download is enough. To meet people and share your views, you can join a book club. And you can read anywhere.

Dancing

Almost everyone loves dancing, even those who are “terrible dancers”: put on music and move. It improves your flexibility (how far you can bend and stretch) and mobility (how easily you move), and lets you let off extra energy and steam (calm down by using up energy or strong feeling). You can dance in your living room, or take it up a notch (go one level higher) by joining a dance studio or an online course.

Collecting antiques

Antiques are old objects valued for their age, beauty or quality: furniture, coins, lamps, clocks. More people now appreciate old, well-made things. If you have an eye for tasteful decor (attractive decoration in a home), collecting may suit you, and “the older, the better”: every piece may carry years of stories. You can also make a hobby of refurbishing (repairing and making like new) old furniture.

Painting

Painting lets you be creative, relaxed and expressive (showing your feelings). All you need is paint and brushes from an art shop. You don’t have to be great: start simple and paint whatever comes to mind. The writer calls it therapeutic (healing, good for your mind). You can paint on an easel (a wooden frame that holds the picture up) or go wild with murals (large paintings on walls).

Photography

Take your phone or camera to a park in a break. You don’t need to be a pro (professional) or own the best equipment. You need a good eye, a camera or smartphone, and the basics: lighting, depth and exposure (how much light reaches the camera). The reward: you keep your memories and have beautiful pictures for your walls.

Writing

People love writing because of the freedom: you can write about anything, from your day to a new recipe. A journal (a diary of your day) helps you handle stress, relax and get more done, and the writer adds that studies show successful people keep journals. You can also start a blog (a website where you post your writing) on a niche (a small special subject you know well) and meet people who think like you, or try a book or a poem.

Knitting

Knitting (making cloth from wool with two long needles) is a good use of free time: you fill your winter wardrobe (the clothes you own) with mittens, hats, scarves and blankets, and make gifts for family and friends. It also exercises your hands and improves coordination (making your hands and eyes work together). Best of all, you can knit almost anywhere: on the bus, watching TV, listening to music or hanging out (spending time, relaxed) with friends.

Words from the text

Words linked here open in English Vocabulary, where you can see an example and practice them in the word game. The meanings below are the ones the words have in this article.

Word	Meaning here
ignite	to start something, like a fire; to make it burst into life
hone	to sharpen; to make a skill better by practice
prevalent	common, found in many places
in-demand	wanted by many people, popular
genre	a kind of book, film or music (mystery, comedy…)
flexibility	being able to bend and stretch easily
mobility	being able to move easily
let off (steam)	to get rid of extra energy or strong feelings
take it up a notch	to raise it one level; a notch is a small cut, used as a mark or a step
passionate	having very strong feelings for something
antique	an old object, valued for its age and beauty
refurbish	to repair and decorate something so it looks new
therapeutic	good for your health or your mind, healing
easel	a wooden stand that holds a painting while it is painted
mural	a large painting on a wall
exposure	how much light reaches a camera’s sensor or film
blog	a website where someone posts their writing regularly
niche	a small, special area of interest
productivity	how much you get done
wardrobe	all the clothes a person owns; also the cupboard they hang in
coordination	making different parts of the body work well together
hang out	to spend time somewhere in a relaxed way, often with friends

A. Synonyms and antonyms

B. Meanings and sentences

C. True, False or Not Given

A statement is True if the text says the same thing, False if the text says the opposite, and Not Given if the text doesn’t say either way.

D. Answer the questions

E. Hobbies and careers

A consonant cluster is two or more consonant sounds together with no vowel between them: str in string, lk in milk. Nepali puts a short vowel into many clusters (istation for station, iskul for school), so English clusters need practice. Notice that a cluster is about sounds, not letters: in scratch the final tch is one sound, /tʃ/.

Word	Cluster(s)	Say it
scout	/sk/ at the start	/skaʊt/
instant	/nst/ in the middle, /nt/ at the end	/ˈɪnstənt/
pulp	/lp/ at the end	/pʌlp/
help	/lp/ at the end	/help/
street	/str/ at the start	/striːt/
frustrating	/fr/ at the start, /str/ in the middle	/frʌˈstreɪtɪŋ/
golf	/lf/ at the end	/ɡɒlf/ (American /ɡɑːlf/)
twelfth	/tw/ at the start, /lfθ/ at the end	/twelfθ/
scratch	/skr/ at the start	/skrætʃ/
spurious	/spj/ at the start	/ˈspjʊəriəs/
spleen	/spl/ at the start	/spliːn/
sprout	/spr/ at the start	/spraʊt/
blog	/bl/ at the start	/blɒɡ/ (American /blɑːɡ/)
sclerosis	/skl/ at the start	/skləˈrəʊsɪs/
trout	/tr/ at the start	/traʊt/
hundredth	/ndr/ in the middle, /dθ/ at the end	/ˈhʌndrədθ/

A. Ways to say what you prefer

Here are three people saying what they like: one would rather stay home and read classics than go out; one hates outdoor games and would rather sleep; one prefers lying on a sandy beach to hang-gliding and canoeing. Each uses a different pattern. Learn them as patterns:

To say…	Pattern	Example
you like something better (in general)	prefer + -ing + to + -ing	I prefer reading to watching TV.
	prefer + noun + to + noun	She prefers tea to coffee.
you like something better (now, this time)	would prefer to + verb + rather than + verb	I’d prefer to stay home rather than go out.
	would rather + verb + than + verb	I’d rather sleep than play outside.
you like or love it	like / love / enjoy / adore + -ing	I love visiting new places.
it doesn’t bother you	don’t mind + -ing	I don’t mind helping passengers.
you dislike it strongly	hate / can’t stand / loathe / detest + -ing	I hate being kept waiting.
you are very keen on it	be crazy about / be fond of / be into + noun or -ing	I’m crazy about sandy beaches.

B. Three people, one plan

In this example, A suggests going to the countryside, B agrees with joy (“Wow! That’s a great idea. I love visiting greenery.”), and C says no politely with a reason (“No, thanks. I don’t like walking long distances.”).

C. Likes and dislikes about careers

The example for a driver: A likes driving a private car better than a taxi; B doesn’t mind helping passengers in a hurry; C hates being kept waiting by customers.

You met the active and passive voice in earlier grades. Here is a quick reminder, then the new part: the passive after verbs like like and mind.

Active and passive

In an active sentence the subject does the action: Ganga feeds the dogs. In a passive sentence the subject is the one the action happens to: The dogs are fed by Ganga.

To make the passive in the present simple:

1. The object of the active sentence becomes the subject: the dogs → The dogs.
2. The verb becomes am / is / are + past participle, agreeing with the new subject: feeds → are fed. (The tense stays present simple; only be shows it.)
3. The doer goes after by, or is left out: by Ganga.

Questions keep the question order, with am/is/are first: Do you turn the laptop on first? → Is the laptop turned on first? Negatives put not after am/is/are: They don’t rent cars there. → Cars aren’t rented there.

When to use the passive

Use the passive when the one the action happens to matters more than the doer, or when the doer is unknown, obvious or unimportant:

• Rice is grown in the Terai. (By farmers, obviously.)
• Many criminals are caught in London every year. (By the police: no need to say.)
• These shawls are made in Bhaktapur. (The shawls are the topic.)

Leave out by + a doer that says nothing: by people, by someone, by them, by us. ✗ The dogs are fed by someone. ✓ The dogs are fed.

After like, love, hate, mind

After verbs that take an -ing form (like, love, adore, enjoy, hate, loathe, detest, can’t stand, don’t mind), the passive is being + past participle:

• I like journalists following me. → I like being followed (by journalists).
• Deuniya doesn’t mind anyone mocking him. → Deuniya doesn’t mind being mocked.

When the action is done to something of yours (your hair, your notebook, your photo), use having + it + past participle:

• I loathe people pulling my hair. → I loathe having my hair pulled.
• Ashmina adores teachers checking her notebooks. → Ashmina adores having her notebooks checked.

A. Complete with the passive

B. Change into the passive

How to write an essay

An essay gives your thoughts on one topic, in paragraphs, for a general reader. In the SEE, an essay is one of the free writing tasks (about 200 words, 8 marks). Its parts:

1. Title: short and clear (My Hobbies and My Future).
2. Introduction (one paragraph): catch the reader’s interest and say what the essay is about.
3. Body (two or three paragraphs): one main idea each, with an example from your own life. Link them: My second hobby…, These hobbies have given me…, For example….
4. Conclusion: sum up and end with a thought of your own.

Before you read

The picture shows three children sitting and standing on the low, spreading branches of a big old tree in a park, smiling and talking.

The poet and the poem

Amy Lowell (1874–1925) was an American poet from Boston. She became a leader of the Imagists, poets who used clear, sharp pictures (images) and everyday words instead of long, decorated lines, and she won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1926, the year after she died. Climbing is one of her verses for children, from her first book, A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass (1912). It is short and musical, and it sounds like a child talking.

The poem, part by part

The poem has four stanzas of four lines each. The speaker is a child climbing an apple tree, telling us what happens as it happens, in the present tense.

Stanza 1: The tree is a staircase

The child goes up the apple tree, with the sky above and the earth below. Each branch is like a step of a wonderful stair that leads up towards a town the child can see shining far away. The tree has become a magic staircase to somewhere bright.

Stanza 2: The shining town

Climbing higher and higher, as the branches sway in the wind, the child begins to see the town’s tall buildings: a spire (the pointed top of a tower), the gleam of a turret (a small tower on a castle or large building), the glint of a dome (a round roof). Everything sparkles, bright like white sea foam.

Stanza 3: Higher than ever before

The child moves on from bough (main branch) to bough, pushing through thick leaves. And here is the turn: before, the child always had to stop somewhere on the way; today, they are sure they will reach the top.

Stanza 4: The top

Today they will go all the way to the end of the marvelous stair, where the glittering pinnacles (tall pointed tops) flash in the air. The last two lines echo the first two, with one change: now the sky is close above and the earth far below.

The poet’s devices:

• Metaphor: each branch is the step of a stair; the tree is a staircase.
• Simile: the shining buildings are like white sea foam.
• Imagery of light: shining, gleam, glint, sparkling, bright, glittering, flash. The higher the child goes, the brighter the world looks.
• Repetition: Climbing, climbing, higher and higher sounds like steady steps up.
• Rhyme in pairs (couplets): go / below, stair / there, higher / spire, dome / foam, stop / top. (Bough / through look alike but sound different: an eye rhyme.)
• A frame: the poem ends where it began, sky and earth, but changed: the sky is now close, the earth far. That small change shows how far the child has come.

Words from the poem

Word	Meaning here
stair	a set of steps from one level to another (also one step of it)
spire	a tall pointed top on a tower, especially of a church
gleam	a soft, steady shine
turret	a small tower on a castle or large building
glint	a small, quick flash of light, often reflected
dome	a round roof, shaped like half a ball
sea foam	the white bubbles on top of waves
bough	a main branch of a tree
marvelous	wonderful, causing great wonder
pinnacle	a tall pointed top of a building or a mountain; also the highest point of success
glittering	shining with many small flashes of light

A. Find the words

B. Choose the correct answers

C. Answer the questions

D. Determination

The textbook’s listening task is a talk counting down the ten most popular hobbies in the world. CDC’s own recording is below: read the tasks in B and C first, then listen, as many times as you need. The answers are hidden under the tasks; after that, practice with a talk of our own that your browser reads aloud.

B and C. The textbook’s audio: answers

A. Being or having

In these two short conversations, Punya likes people praising him, while Siddhartha doesn’t mind being praised; Rama doesn’t like having her photographs taken, but Mina adores having her photographs taken. The rule from Grammar I: being + past participle when the action is done to you; having + something of yours + past participle when it is done to your thing.

It is said that…: the impersonal passive

News and history often use verbs like say, think, believe, expect, know, suppose in the passive, when the speaker is “people in general” or unknown. People say that he is rich has two passives:

1. It + is said + that + the clause unchanged: It is said that he is rich.
2. The clause’s subject first, then is said + to + verb: He is said to be rich.

If the action in the clause is earlier than the saying, use to have + past participle: People think that the criminal has fled. → The criminal is thought to have fled.

To turn these back into the active, put in a general subject, people, they, or whoever is meant: It is expected that the war will end soon. → People expect that the war will end soon.

Passive into active

To change a passive sentence into the active, work backwards:

1. Find the doer after by, or, if there is none, choose a fitting subject (people, they, we, someone, or the obvious doer).
2. Make the doer the subject, and put the verb in the same tense, active: is caused → causes.
3. The old subject becomes the object: Many accidents are caused by speeding. → Speeding causes many accidents.

After like, hate, love: I hate being kept waiting. → I hate people keeping me waiting.

B. Change into the active

A. A vacancy advertisement

A vacancy advertisement (a job advertisement) tells people that a job is open and invites them to apply. Readers skim it fast, so it is short, set out in clear parts, with the important facts easy to find.

B. Paraphrasing

To paraphrase is to say the same thing in your own words: the same meaning, different words and sentences, and about the same length. (A summary is shorter and keeps only the main points.) You paraphrase when you explain a text, when you take notes, and whenever you write from a source, so that you don’t copy it.

The book’s example retells a short news report: a 68-year-old man in Gastonia scared off two masked men who tried to break into his home, using the gun he keeps on his walking frame, and then taped a note to his door warning that he would be waiting if they came back. The paraphrase keeps every fact but changes the order and the words: it starts with the two men, uses attempted to break into, were scared off, afterwards, warning, and burglars.

An idiom is a group of words whose meaning is different from the meanings of its single words: spill the beans has nothing to do with beans. Idioms make speech lively, but use them in informal writing and speech; in a formal letter, use plain words.

Idiom	Meaning	Example
spill the beans	to tell a secret	Promise me you will never spill the beans about the surprise party.
pull someone’s leg	to tease someone by telling them something untrue as a joke	Don’t worry, I’m only pulling your leg: the exam isn’t tomorrow.
sit on the fence	to avoid choosing a side	You can’t sit on the fence any longer: tell us whom you support.
through thick and thin	loyally, in good times and bad	A true friend stands by you through thick and thin.
once in a blue moon	very rarely	We go to the cinema only once in a blue moon.
take something with a pinch of salt	to doubt that something is completely true	Take his stories about meeting film stars with a pinch of salt.
when pigs fly	never; something that will not happen	“He’ll clean his room without being asked?” “Yes, when pigs fly.”
go down in flames	to fail completely, often suddenly	Without proper planning, the project will go down in flames.
cost an arm and a leg	to be very expensive	That new phone cost an arm and a leg.
see eye to eye	to agree	My brother and I don’t see eye to eye about music.
a piece of cake	something very easy	The first question was a piece of cake.
beat around the bush	to avoid saying the main thing	Stop beating around the bush and tell me what happened.
hit the sack	to go to bed	I’m really tired; let me hit the sack.
(as) fit as a fiddle	very healthy and strong	At eighty, my grandfather is as fit as a fiddle.
(straight) from the horse’s mouth	from the person who knows best, directly	I got the news straight from the horse’s mouth: the principal told me herself.
actions speak louder than words	what you do shows more than what you say	Don’t just promise to help. Actions speak louder than words.
bite off more than you can chew	to take on more work than you can manage	I bit off more than I could chew when I joined three clubs before the exams.

SEE-style practice on this unit. Try each one as in the exam, then open the answer.