Learn English Professionals

In Part 3 of the Reading paper there is a text from which six or seven sentences or paragraphs have been removed. You have to decide where in the text the sentences or paragraphs have been taken from. In this lesson you are going to look at texts of this kind and learn how to decide where to put the sentences. You get advice on how to do this, and also how to answer the specific questions. You read an article by someone who went on a cookery course in Paris, you study vocabulary connected with cooking and you study word-building using words from the article. Finally, you do an exam question.

You are going to read a magazine article about a cookery course. Eight sentences have been removed from the article. Choose from the sentences A-I the one which fits each gap (1-8). There is one extra sentence which you do not need to use. If you need help, there are hints below the text.

Gapped Text

	The missing sentence usually comes in the middle of the paragraph. In order to choose the right sentence to put in the gap, you should read the whole paragraph - what comes before the gap, and what comes after. When you have chosen the sentence to fill the gap, read the complete paragraph again to make sure it makes sense.
	If you are not sure which sentence to put in a gap, leave it until later, and do the ones which you find easier first.
	Choose sentences which fit logically with the ideas being expressed in the paragraph. Be ready to change your mind, if you find that a sentence might go better somewhere else, because if you put one sentence in the wrong place, you will probably put another sentence in the wrong place somewhere else.
	Concentrate on doing the task rather than worrying about difficult words.

A.	Slice your carrots too thin and he rejects them with a disdainful gesture.
B.	We were waiting silently in the kitchen for him to arrive, and he burst into the room, already talking and giving instructions as the door opened.
C.	Just as the packaging of a perfume, the box and the bottle it comes in, may persuade someone to buy it, so the arrangement of the food on the plate will add to the appetite and pleasure of the eater.
D.	By the end of the first day, we were all beginning to show signs of exhaustion.
E.	For Guy Dupois, the smell of the raw ingredients is a key to the composition of the various dishes we would later concoct.
F.	I was by no means the oldest, and, as I was to discover, by no means the least experienced .
G.	I had cooked for twenty years, but never professionally, and here I was, on a course run by the well-known French chef, Guy Dupois.
H.	How to choose and how to reject is an art in itself, according to Guy, requiring intuition as well as training.
I.	As Guy Dupois says, the art of great cookery is to produce a dish where you are able to taste each ingredient individually.

Learning to cook

With some nervousness I turned up for the first cookery lesson of my life at an expensive Paris hotel off the Champs Elysées. 1. ___ Would I be the only middle-aged housewife on the course, surrounded by keen young professionals, all eager to learn from the new guru of French cooking?
I found myself in a group of twenty-five people, and their ages ranged from their early twenties through to their late fifties. 2. ____ Perhaps the only two characteristics we all had in common were our ability to understand French (though not all of us could speak it well) and our ability to pay the 10,000 francs for a weekend's cookery course.
Guy Dupois is a flamboyant personality. He dresses in extravagantly colourful clothes with none of those typical white chef's hats and aprons, and he speaks French at tremendous speed, making no allowances for the half of us who were foreigners on the course. 3. ___ Within five minutes he had us peeling potatoes, slicing carrots and chopping onions.
Everything had to be done with great speed, and cut exactly to the size he required. 4.____ "Those are only fit for the soup," he would say, before grabbing a potato from the hand of another student and showing him how to peel it in the way he wanted.
After a session of preparing ingredients for cooking, but no cooking, he moved on to other secrets. We were told to pick up the different foods and smell them. 5. ____ He insists that the best cooking is invention, not following recipes. You cannot taste the food before you cook it, but you can have an idea of the flavours that combine by smelling them before you start, and this allows you to imagine the finished product.
Later in the day we were instructed in the many techniques of good cooking: how to grill, fry, boil and roast correctly. We were taught to use herbs and spices sparingly. 6. ____ If the taste of the food needs hiding with herbs and spices, the basic ingredients are not of good enough quality, or you are cooking lazily.
At five o'clock in the morning, we were all taken down to the central market to learn how to buy those high quality ingredients. 7. ___ The best ingredients are not always the cleanest or the most beautiful to look at, and he demonstrated how crafty stall-holders may hide the defects in the produce.
Then back to the kitchen, and the preparation of lunch with Guy's guidance. He then showed us how the presentation is all-important. He explains it by comparing food to fashion products. 8. __So we were shown how to combine colours and textures to provide both contrast and harmony.
After twenty years of home cooking, this was all food for thought.

Hints:

Paragraph 1 is an introductory paragraph. Look for a sentence which gives basic introductory information.
This paragraph talks about the type of people on the course. Look for a sentence which describes the writer.
This paragraph describes the beginning of the course. Find a sentence which describes how things started.
This paragraph talks about how things should be cut and peeled. Find a sentence which says what happens when things are not done properly.
This paragraph talks about smelling food. Find a sentence which deals with this.
This paragraph talks about not hiding the real taste of food with herbs and spices. Find a sentence which talks about why this is important.
This paragraph talks about buying food. Which sentence talks about choosing what to buy?
This paragraph talks about the presentation of the food on the plate. Which sentence explains why this is important?

Look at these words, which came from the text in activity 1. Put them into the correct box below depending on whether they are ways of cutting food, or ways of cooking food.

peel	grill	roast	boil
slice	chop	fry

ways of cutting food	ways of cooking food

Join the words on the left (from the text in activity 1) with their definitions on the right.

1. cookery	a) piece of clothing which cooks wear on their front to protect their other clothes
2. chef	b) uncooked
3. apron	c) instructions for cooking a dish
4. raw	d) ingredients which are used to add to, or change the taste of a dish
5. ingredients	e) the art of cooking
6. dish	f) the different foods which are used to produce a dish
7. recipe	g) taste
8. flavour	h) professional cook
9. herbs and spices	i) what you eventually eat, for example, roast chicken, or hamburger and chips





Read the text below. Use the word given in capitals at the end of each line to form a word that fits in the space in the same line. All the words you need occurred in the text in activity 1.





You can listen to the article “Learning to cook” if you log on to the FCE Reading pages on the LearnEnglish Professionals website.

The first thing you should do to answer the part 3 question is read the text quickly, to get an idea of what it is about. You should ignore the gaps at this stage. Here is an article about an organisation called “Dress for Success”. Seven sentences have been removed from it. Read the article quickly and answer the question.

What is the aim of the organisation?

a) To help people do well in job interviews.

b) To help people find jobs.

c) To help people dress well at work.

Dressed for success

It's a problem faced by women all over the world. You've been out of work for some time. You want to get back into the workforce, get a job. 1. Without the right clothes, you won't make the right impression, and without a job, you haven't got the money for new clothes. It's a dilemma that's difficult to solve. Until, that is, Nancy Lublin arrived on the scene.

Poppy Max, Nancy's great-grandfather, was a penniless immigrant, sleeping rough under Brooklyn Bridge. Determined to get on in life, he started making a little money selling second-hand clothes from a hand-cart. 2. However, he always remembered the homeless men under the bridge, and made sure they had adequate clothes.

Poppy Max died in 1996, leaving Nancy some money in his will. 3. She set up an organisation for women wanting to make a fresh start, the core of which is a system whereby working women donate clothes for unemployed women to wear at interviews.

Dress for Success has already helped thousands of women in America, Canada and New Zealand, and has just been launched in the UK. The organisation targets working women, particularly those in large companies, and asks them to donate suits or other suitable 'interview clothes'. 4. The whole idea is to help women feel confident in interviews, and give that all-important good impression. As Nancy says, "It's a great way for busy women to contribute to their community. We encourage offices to set up collection points."

Dress for Success is a strictly non-profit making organisation, relying on volunteers and the good-will of working women. Other organisations, however, have set up schemes with a similar aim but completely different approach. 6. It generated a lot of publicity, but much of it concentrated on the actual clothes the stars gave, rather than the aims of the project. Newspapers wondered if women would be turning up to interviews wearing party frocks, and some just criticised the celebrities' taste in clothes.

Dress for Success, on the other hand, doesn't target celebrities. "We do get donations from famous people", says Nancy. " 7. They just go with all the other clothes. We prefer to concentrate on the people the clothes are going to."

Nancy hopes to set up more projects around the world, to help as many women as possible make a new start in life. Poppy Max would certainly approve.

When you have read the text quickly, you should then read the sentences. Here are the sentences that have been removed from the first three paragraphs, together with an extra sentence which does not fit any of the gaps.

A. From this humble start, in the true tradition of the American Dream, he prospered.

B. You need smart clothes for the interview, but you can't afford them.

C. Inspired by his example, she decided to use it to help those less well-off.

D. Of course, clothes are not as important as having the right qualifications.

You should first try to match the topic of the sentence with the topic of the paragraph, looking especially at the sentences before and after the gap. When you have done this for all the sentences, you should check that they fit by looking at the language connections e.g. pronouns, matching tenses.

Now put the sentences into the numbered gaps. Remember there is one sentence you don't need to use.

Dressed for success

It's a problem faced by women all over the world. You've been out of work for some time. You want to get back into the workforce, get a job. 1. ______ Without the right clothes, you won't make the right impression, and without a job, you haven't got the money for new clothes. It's a dilemma that's difficult to solve. Until, that is, Nancy Lublin arrived on the scene.

Poppy Max, Nancy's great-grandfather, was a penniless immigrant, sleeping rough under Brooklyn Bridge. Determined to get on in life, he started making a little money selling second-hand clothes from a hand-cart. 2. ______ However, he always remembered the homeless men under the bridge, and made sure they had adequate clothes.

Poppy Max died in 1996, leaving Nancy some money in his will. 3. ______ She set up an organisation for women wanting to make a fresh start, the core of which is a system whereby working women donate clothes for unemployed women to wear at interviews.

Here are the first three complete paragraphs again. Some words and phrases are in bold. What do they refer to?

Example:
You need smart clothes for the interview, but you can't afford them. ' Them' refers to smart clothes.

Dressed for success

It's a problem faced by women all over the world. You've been out of work for some time. You want to get back into the workforce, get a job. You need smart clothes for the interview, but you can't afford them. Without the right clothes, you won't make the right impression, and without a job, you haven't got the money for new clothes. It's a dilemma that's difficult to solve. Until, that is, Nancy Lublin arrived on the scene.

Poppy Max, Nancy's great-grandfather, was a penniless immigrant, sleeping rough under Brooklyn Bridge. Determined to get on in life, he started making a little money selling second-hand clothes from a hand-cart. From this humble start, in the true tradition of the American Dream, he prospered. However, he always remembered the homeless men under the bridge, and made sure they had adequate clothes.

Poppy Max died in 1996, leaving Nancy some money in his will. Inspired by his example, she decided to use it to help those less well-off. She set up an organisation for women wanting to make a fresh start, the core of which is a system whereby working women donate clothes for unemployed women to wear at interviews.

Here is the rest of the article. Complete it by putting the sentences into the correct gaps. There is one sentence you don't need to use. Remember to think about topic clues first, and then language clues.

A. If they are successful, they are given another outfit to wear during their first week at work.

B. But we don't make a fuss about them.

C. Of course, clothes are not as important as having the right qualifications.

D. The clothes must be contemporary and nearly-new - there is no point in donating old worn-out clothes.

E. A large employment agency made the headlines by asking celebrities to donate clothes to job-hunters.

…

Dress for Success has already helped thousands of women in America, Canada and New Zealand, and has just been launched in the UK. The organisation targets working women, particularly those in large companies, and asks them to donate suits or other suitable 'interview clothes'. 4. __________ The whole idea is to help women feel confident in interviews, and give that all-important good impression. As Nancy says, "It's a great way for busy women to contribute to their community. We encourage offices to set up collection points."

Local agencies send the clients, who are dressed by smart, enthusiastic volunteers, some of whom have even given up jobs to do it. A client is given one set of clothes for the interview, with a handbag and coat if necessary. 5. _____________
Dress for Success is a strictly non-profit making organisation, relying on volunteers and the good-will of working women. Other organisations, however, have set up schemes with a similar aim but completely different approach. 6. ____________ It generated a lot of publicity, but much of it concentrated on the actual clothes the stars gave, rather than the aims of the project. Newspapers wondered if women would be turning up to interviews wearing party frocks, and some just criticised the celebrities' taste in clothes.

Dress for Success, on the other hand, doesn't target celebrities. "We do get donations from famous people", says Nancy. "7. __________________ They just go with all the other clothes. We prefer to concentrate on the people the clothes are going to."

Nancy hopes to set up more projects around the world, to help as many women as possible make a new start in life. Poppy Max would certainly approve.

Here is an example of an exam question from Paper 1 Reading Part 3. Read the instructions and then do the activity. Remember to start by reading the whole text quickly.

You are going to read a magazine article about buying art. Seven sentences have been removed from the article. Choose the most suitable sentence for each gap. There is one extra sentence which you do not need to use. There is an example at the beginning (0).

Much of it is for sale, and an added bonus is that you will be helping new artists find their feet.
But how do you go about it?
Many young artists are happy to talk about their work.
How will it look hanging on the wall or sitting on the shelf?
Some are billed as 'art supermarkets' promoting the idea that art is for all, not just the elite.
That is, the effect that a piece of art has on a person.
And once inside, the language used to describe art is often mystifying.
Check out the newspapers for any new exhibitions.

Buying art

Having an original work of art in your home is thought by many to be a luxury, only available to the very rich. However it needn't be, if you buy work from new, rather than well-established artists. 0. But how do you go about it?

The art world can seem pretty intimidating from the outside. Stepping into a gallery, under the gaze of a haughty assistant, requires an amount of courage. 1.______________________________________________________________ Labels do little to help and catalogues can be full of jargon. It's enough to make you turn on your heel and run.

So what should the first-time buyer do? Well, first of all you should ignore the labels and catalogues. After all, they are people's attempts to put into words what probably can't be written down. 2.________________________________________ And it's the effect that the piece has on you that is important. Look at it carefully. What does it say to you? Come back to it again if you're not sure.

You need to keep an open mind and look around several galleries. You may not be sure what you like at first, so try and see as many works as you can. 3._____________________________________________________________ Take your time and don't feel rushed into making a decision.

Of course, there are other places to look, as well as art galleries, especially if you have a limited budget. Art colleges usually hold end-of-year degree shows, where the newly graduated show their work. 4.______________________________________ Many restaurants, cafes and bars display work by local artists. Keep an eye out for them, especially when visiting new places.

Art fairs are another source of affordable art. Here you can see a wide range of new work, in lots of different styles. Prices also vary, but start at a very reasonable level. There are international art fairs, which travel around major cities, or locally organised fairs, often held annually. 5.______________________________________ For many people this is a far less daunting way of buying art. They are usually advertised in 'What's on' guides, as well as in art publications.

The final point is perhaps the most important. Remember that however good the work of art looks when on display, it also needs to look good in your home. Try to visualise it in its projected place. 6._______________________________________ Will it dominate, look too big or even too small? Ask the dealer if you can try it out at home first, before you make a commitment. A good dealer should be happy to comply. After all, once you've bought it you have to be able to live with it.

You can listen to the article “Buying Art” if you log on to the FCE Reading pages on the LearnEnglish Professionals website.

In this e-m@il lesson you have:

	practised a strategy for paper 1 part 3 the gapped text
	expanded your vocabulary connected to cooking
	practised word building

The next lesson focuses on part 4 of the Reading paper, which is multiple matching. You study a strategy to deal with this kind of task, and look at vocabulary connected to the topic of crime and punishment.