Exam practice

The sports are rugby, hockey, kabaddi, basketball, athletics (a sprint) and cycling.

Pasang: Can you play rugby?

Yangchen: No, I can’t. I’ve never even seen a rugby ball in Nepal! Can you play hockey?

Pasang: Not really. I can hit the ball, but I can’t run with it on my stick. What about kabaddi?

Yangchen: Oh yes, I can play kabaddi. We play it at school, and it needs nothing but a flat ground. Last year I was able to tag three players in one raid.

Pasang: That’s great. I can’t shoot a basketball very well, but I can run fast. I came second in the hundred meters.

Yangchen: I can’t ride a racing bike, but I will be able to, once my brother teaches me.

• a.Tennis: lawn tennis, played on grass.
• b.The men are Novak Djokovic of Serbia and Roger Federer of Switzerland, at the end of the 2019 Wimbledon final. The women are Simona Halep of Romania and Serena Williams of the United States, after the 2019 women’s final, holding the winner’s and runner-up’s plates.

• a.prestigious: vi. respected and admired as very important
• b.substantially: iv. considerably
• c.gilt: i. a thin layer of gold
• d.inscription: vii. words written in front of a book or cut in stone or metal
• e.salver: ii. a large plate, usually made of metal
• f.mythology: v. study of myths
• g.stunning: iii. extremely attractive or impressive

• a.True. Grass, the game’s first surface, gave it its first name, lawn tennis.
• b.False. It is not a junior event: the text lists it among the invitation events (and at Wimbledon today it is an event of its own).
• c.False. Most Centre Court tickets are given out by a public ballot, picked at random by a computer.
• d.True. It begins in late June and ends in July.
• e.False. The show courts are used only during the championships, about two weeks a year.
• f.True. That was the prize for each singles winner in 2019.

It is the only Grand Slam still played on grass, the game’s original surface; the others are played on clay or hard courts. It is also the oldest, held since 1877.

The Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open.

Gentlemen’s singles, ladies’ singles, gentlemen’s doubles, ladies’ doubles and mixed doubles.

They can queue up overnight outside the grounds, because a certain number of seats are set aside for people in the queue on each match day.

To reduce the playing time lost to bad weather: when it rains, the roof slides over the court and play goes on.

“All England Lawn Tennis Club Single Handed Championship of the World.”

Novak Djokovic won the gentlemen’s singles, beating Roger Federer, and Simona Halep won the ladies’ singles, beating Serena Williams.

Sport is for everyone, and a wheelchair doesn’t take away a person’s skill, speed or will to win. Tournaments for wheelchair users give them the same chance as other athletes to train, compete and become champions, and to earn money and respect from their sport. They are also good for health: regular sport keeps the heart, the arms and the mind strong. And they change how the rest of us think: when crowds watch a wheelchair final at Wimbledon, they see ability, not disability, and children who use wheelchairs see that they, too, could play on the world’s most famous courts. In Nepal, wheelchair basketball and para-sports teams have shown the same thing.

1. Read the table above aloud first, word by word, until each one feels easy.
2. Read the poem slowly, one couplet (pair of lines) at a time. Use the rhyme: verse and worse, busy and dizzy, tear and prayer. Where a line says but, as in break and steak, but bleak and streak, the words after it are said differently.
3. Mark the stress of long words in pencil: cre-A-tion, pro-nun-ci-A-tion, a-NEM-o-ne.
4. Read the whole extract aloud in one go, then record yourself on a phone and listen for the words you stumbled on.

A: Can you ride a horse? B: Yes, I can ride a horse, but I can’t make it gallop.
A: Can you swim? B: Yes, I can swim, but I can’t dive from a height.
A: Can you play the madal? B: No, I can’t play the madal, but I can play the flute.
A: Can you drive a car? B: No, I can’t drive a car yet. I will be able to drive when I am eighteen and get a licence.
A: Can you ride a bicycle? B: Yes, I can. I was able to ride all the way from Bhaktapur to Nagarkot last Saturday!
Say can in a question and a positive sentence weakly (“kn”), and can’t strongly, with its full vowel: I CAN’T swim. The strong vowel is how a listener hears the difference.

I asked Srijana about the ten things in the table. Srijana can’t write with both hands, and she can’t draw pictures with her legs. She can’t drive a car yet, but she can ride a bicycle: she rides to school every day. She can sew a button on a shirt, and she can work with a computer; she types faster than anyone in our class. She can peel a pineapple and she can make chicken curry, because she helps her mother cook. She has never done bungee jumping, but she says she will be able to do it at the Bhote Koshi when she is older. She hasn’t been able to climb a mountain yet, but she was able to walk up to Poon Hill last Dashain.

The five tags are aren’t they? (Birds are free), can they? (they can’t fly in the sky), don’t they? (Birds play an important role in the ecosystem), haven’t they? (Humans have polluted the environment) and mustn’t we? (We must keep our environment clean).
Each tag follows a comma and ends with a question mark. Notice that the one negative statement (can’t fly) takes the one positive tag (can they?).

For each one, find the helping verb (or use do/does/did), flip the sign, and use a pronoun. Six of them are tricky cases from the table above.

• a.isn’t it? (smoking → it)
• b.doesn’t she? (speaks: no helping verb, present, she → does)
• c.will you? (a request)
• d.haven’t they? (everybody → they)
• e.do we? (negative statement, positive tag)
• f.aren’t I?
• g.shall we? (let’s)
• h.will you? (an order to the listener: allow him)
• i.wouldn’t they? (’d build = would build)
• j.hadn’t you? (’d better = had better)
• k.could they? (no one: negative, and → they)
• l.hasn’t he? (Roshan’s gone = Roshan has gone)
• m.need you? (needn’t is the helping verb, so need comes back in the tag)
• n.wouldn’t we? (’d prefer = would prefer)

Put the biggest fact, 800 kg of garbage from Ama Dablam, in the headline and the lead. The notes give no date, so choose one for the dateline. Who organized it, who took part and who paid go in the second paragraph; the handover and Mr. Sherpa’s thanks at the end. You may add a quotation in his words, but nothing the notes don’t support.

Army Collects 800 kg of Garbage from Ama Dablam
By Our Correspondent
Solukhumbu, 26 Mangsir 2075
The Nepali Army has collected 800 kilograms of garbage from Mount Ama Dablam during a clean-up campaign in the Khumbu region.
The Mt. Ama Dablam Clean-up Campaign 2075 was organized by the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (SPCC). Soldiers of the Shumsher Gulma, a company of the Nepali Army, took part in the campaign and gathered the waste left behind on the mountain. The Khumbu Village Body provided financial assistance for the campaign.
The garbage was handed over to the local community at a program held at the end of the campaign, so that it can be sorted and disposed of safely.
Speaking at the program, SPCC Chair Mr. Sherpa expressed his gratitude to the Nepali Army. “The mountains are our home and our livelihood,” he said. “We thank the Army for helping us keep Ama Dablam clean.”

• a.I play football every evening with my friends, because it needs only a ball and a bit of open ground, and I love the feeling of scoring a goal. I also play table tennis at school, because it is fast and teaches me to react quickly.
• b.Sports keep our bodies fit and strong, and our minds fresh: after a game, it is easier to study. They teach teamwork, discipline and how to win and lose well. They help us make friends, and for some people they become a career.

a. impartial b. career c. adapted d. recreation e. unique
Strictly, unique means “the only one of its kind”, so careful writers avoid most unique; in everyday English, though, it is often used to mean “very unusual”, as here.

Some people do sports as a career, to earn their living; others do them purely for enjoyment and recreation. Many also play because doctors and schools encourage it, and because people like to compete.

Most sports are played with a ball, a round object, and most are controlled by an impartial official, an umpire or a referee. Most also last no more than a few hours.

He or she must be impartial: fair to both sides, favoring neither.

Yes. Watching on television at home is usually cheaper than going to a stadium or a special event: no ticket and no travel. It is also comfortable, and you can see replays and close-ups. (But you miss the atmosphere of a live crowd, and you don’t get any exercise!)

To suit their needs, so that they can take part in sport and enjoy it whatever their physical condition: sport is for everyone.

Because sport is good for health: it keeps the heart, lungs, muscles and bones strong, helps control weight, and lowers the risk of illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease. It also reduces stress and helps people sleep and feel better.

My favorite sport is football. It could be adapted in several ways. For players who are blind or partly sighted, we could use a ball with bells inside it, so that they can hear where it is, as blind football does; the goalkeeper, who can see, and a guide behind the goal call out directions, and the crowd keeps quiet. For players who use wheelchairs, a team could play power-chair football with a larger ball on an indoor court. For players with one leg, there is amputee football, played on crutches. In my own school, we could start by making a path so a wheelchair can reach the ground, and by giving every student, whatever their ability, a role in our tournament: player, referee, coach or commentator.

• a.Sometimes. I listen to the English news on Radio Nepal in the morning, and my father watches the evening news on television. It helps my listening, because newsreaders speak clearly.
• b.Give three or four short headlines, as newsreaders do: who did what, in the present perfect or the present tense. For example: The government has announced a new budget for schools. Heavy rain has blocked the road to Jomsom. Nepal’s cricket team has won its match against the UAE.

• a.London: v. Olympics to be organized (London has won the race to host the 2012 Olympics)
• b.Estonia: vi. New president elected
• c.USA: ii. Thousands injured by hurricanes (Hurricanes Maxwell and Nelly; the headline says thousands are expected to be injured)
• d.Manchester United: iii. Young player Brillinho bought for the highest price (a world record 42 million euros)
• e.Berlin Zoo: i. Chi Chi gives birth to twins

Option iv, Storms cause damage, is the one left over, though the hurricanes did cause millions of dollars of damage: the headline itself is about the people expected to be hurt.

• a.Paris (its close rival; New York, Moscow and Madrid were knocked out earlier).
• b.Within the next 48 hours.
• c.The southeast coast and the Caribbean (the headline names the Florida Keys).
• d.Five years (a five-year contract).
• e.Since 1994.

Listen once just to follow the stories, then again with a pen. For each story, write one short sentence: who did what, in the present perfect or the present simple, with no small details. For example: Prime Minister inaugurates new bridge over Koshi. · Rain disrupts flights at Tribhuvan Airport. · Nepal women’s team wins SAFF Championship opener. Headlines often drop a, the and is.

The students have aced the exam. → The students have not aced the exam.
Play with the baby please. → Don’t play with the baby please.
Could you play the guitar please? → Could you not play the guitar please?
The boss was friendly. → The boss was not friendly.
She bought someone a present. → She bought no one a present.
Always knock on the door before entering. → Never knock on the door before entering.
Stuti used to live in London. → Stuti didn’t use to live in London.
Alex ate rice yesterday. → Alex didn’t eat rice yesterday.

Find the helping verb first; if there is none, use do/does/did. Then look for partner words: always, some, many, either … or.

• a.Your new friends are not chatting online now.
• b.His teacher does not know what to do.
• c.My classes did not start on time yesterday.
• d.Mary will not come to the party.
• e.Raju had not painted the wall when I reached his home.
• f.Rani is not leaving Singapore tomorrow.
• g.My mother and grandmother never go to the temple on Saturdays.
• h.None of the rice has gone bad.
• i.We do not have to work hard to live a decent life.
• j.Mr. Pant has not won any awards.
• k.She doesn’t usually carry a walking stick.
• l.Neither Sobhana nor Karma will attend the meeting.

In g, don’t always go is also correct English, but it says something different: they go on some Saturdays but not every one. The exercise, like the matching in A, turns always into never. In k, many answer keys give She never carries a walking stick; that says she doesn’t carry one at any time, a stronger statement. The plain negative of usually is doesn’t usually (most of the time she doesn’t).

The first paragraph has four ideas: (1) many kinds of people do many kinds of sport; (2) some do it as a job, others for fun; (3) some sports, like cricket, need lots of equipment, others very little; (4) some people play free on public fields, while squash, tennis, badminton and table tennis are usually paid for by the hour at a leisure centre. Cover the paragraph and write each idea in a sentence of your own.

People of every kind take part in a great variety of sports. For some, sport is their profession; for others, it is simply a way to have fun and relax. A game like cricket cannot be played without plenty of equipment, but other games need hardly any. Many players use public grounds without paying anything, whereas courts for games such as squash, tennis, badminton and table tennis are normally rented by the hour at a nearby leisure centre.

• a.For three days.
• b.For being strictly impartial (fair to both sides).
• c.A race for wheelchair users.
• d.engraved (engrave)

a. doesn’t it? b. shall we? c. did they? d. aren’t I? e. hadn’t you?

• a.Dawa cannot swim across the Phewa Lake.
• b.The coach never shouts at the players.
• c.Nobody has taken my racket. (No one has taken my racket is also right.)
• d.Neither Rabina nor Abdul will lead the march.

• a.could (or was able to: a general ability in the past)
• b.were able to (one success, so not could)
• c.will be able to (the future)
• d.has been able to (up to now)

Everest House Wins Sports Week as Record Falls
By the School Magazine Team
Bhaktapur, 18 Mangsir 2083
Everest House was named overall winner of Shree Janajyoti Secondary School’s sports week, which ended today with the football and volleyball finals.
More than 450 students took part in 14 events over six days, from races and kabaddi to chess and a tug of war. The highlight came on Sunday, when Grade 9 student Zeenat broke the school’s 100-meter record by almost half a second.
“I have been training every morning since Dashain,” she said after the race.
The ward chair gave away the prizes at the closing program and praised the students’ discipline and fair play. The school plans to add a wheelchair race next year.