Title: CPE reading practice © Pearson PHOTOCOPIABLE l Time 50 minutes Level Advanced Materials Photocopiable worksheet and LDOCE Aim To help students prepare for CPE - reading Lesson plan: CPE - reading practice Warmer Exercise 1 a) handsome price handsome adj 3 a handsome profit/sum/fee, etc. a large amount of money: he sold the stocks and made a handsome profit for himself . b) embarked upon embark v [I,T] embark on/upon sth phr v [T] to start something, especially something new and difficult that will take a long time: In the 1950s China embarked on a major program of industrialization c) struggling struggle 1 v [I] 1 to try extremely hard to achieve something, even though it is very difficult and you have lots of problems: struggle to do sth She’s struggling to bring up a family on a very low income d) well-to-do well-to-do adj 1 rich and with a high social position: well-to-do families 2 the well-to-do people who are rich f) acumen acumen n [U] the ability to think quickly and make good judgements: business/political/financial , etc. acumen The firm’s success is due to the director’s ingnuity and business acumen. e) all and sundry sundry adj [only before noun] formal 1 all and sundry everyone, not just a few carefully chosen people: In the 80s the economy was booming and banks dished out loans to all and sundry. g) assiduity assiduous adj formal very careful to make sure that something is done properly or completely: an assiduous collector of folk songs–– assiduously adv ––assiduity n [U] h) patronized patronize v [T] 2 formal to use or visit a shop, restaurant, etc. tourists who patronize the shopping and recreational facilities i) humdrum humdrum adj boring and ordinary, and having very little variety or interest: humdrum existence/job a humdrum office job Encourage students to record new words and to write down whether they are verbs, nouns or adjectives, etc. together with example sentences from LDOCE. This exercise tests students’ general comprehension of each paragraph and checks that they have fully understood some of the new vocabulary in exercise 1. They should use LDOCE to help them. Answers: a) True - he had inherited a ‘struggling business’. b) False - she had explained the success of her business ‘to all and sundry’. c) False - there is no evidence in the passage of this attitude (explain the other meaning of patronizing if necessary). For homework, or in class if there’s time, students find their own excerpts from a selection of readers. Ask them to write a similar exercise to the one above so they can think of it from the exam point of view. What kind of words are being tested? To write their exercises, students pick between 8 and 10 words from the passage and use the dictionary definitions to describe the words they’ve picked. They write these descriptions under the passage (which they’ve copied out). When they come into class (or in class) they exchange exercises with their partners and try to pick the correct words from the passage according to the definitions. Further activities Get students to think about different types of fiction (romance, crime, romantic, historical, etc.), and ask them their favourites. Let them discuss these in pairs. Ask them to give examples of crime writers and novels. Give students time to read the passage and use LDOCE to look up any unknown words. The exercise is a typical CPE reading exam exercise. Encourage the students to check their answers in LDOCE. Paragraphs 3 & 4 Paragraph 2 Paragraph 1 Exercise 2 Source: Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English