In the text on page 2, you could scan to find out how many people there are in the conversation.1 Scan the conversation on social media on page 2 and answer the questions.a How many diff
Trang 11 SPEAKING
a Ask and answer the questions with a partner
1 How do you usually talk to your friends … ?
• by phone • Skype / FaceTime • other
• in person • on social media
2 Is it easier to meet new people in person or on social
media? Why?
BETTER READING: SCANNING
Sometimes you need to scan (look at the text quickly) to find
specific information In the text on page 2, you could scan to
find out how many people there are in the conversation.
1 Scan the conversation on social media on page 2
and answer the questions
a How many different people (apart from Toni)
comment on Toni’s post?
b How did the design of the text help you to find
the answer?
a Read the conversation on page 2 and answer the
questions
Who … ?
1 says he went skiing
2 knows a man who lives in London
3 says she’s travelling somewhere
4 plays a musical instrument
5 works with tourists
b Find words or phrases with these meanings
1 people you know (Toni’s post)
2 from the area where you are (Toni’s post)
3 take you to interesting places (Simone’s comment)
4 to say something that’s true (Martin’s comment)
5 meet (Chris’s comment)
c Choose the best ending for the sentences
1 Toni Perez …
a wants to visit London one day.
b thinks Chris is a man’s name.
c doesn’t want to meet Chris.
b teaches people how to ski.
c is a good friend of Martin Teal.
4 Martin Teal …
a is very quiet and not very friendly.
b knows a person with the surname Cross.
c wasn’t very popular on the ski course.
a Ask and answer the questions with a partner
Do you … ?
1 use social media to get help from friends
2 post photos when you travel
3 like to have somebody local to show you around a new city
READING PLUS Meeting people
Unit 1
Cambridge English Empower A2 READING PLUS
Trang 2Toni Perez added 1 new photo
5 mins
Off on my travels!
Hi everybody This is me at the airport on
my way to London! Does anybody have
any contacts in London? It would be nice to
meet somebody local!
Profile Wall Friends Chat Games
Ariel Dante I know someone in London His name’s Tom Schulz He’s from Austria, but he works in London He’s really cool, speaks English, French and German, and he’s a brilliant guitar player He’s married to a famous Brazilian singer But I think he’s on holiday at the moment so maybe he isn’t in London
Simone Blanc I know somebody you could contact My friend Chris lives in London
Simone Blanc Her surname’s Cross You can message her here: Chris Cross
Simone Blanc Wait a minute – Tina Cross? From Ireland? I think it’s the same person Her full name is Christina Cross Her friends call her Chris, but some people call her Tina She works as a tour guide in the British Museum
Toni Perez Oh, what a pity!
Toni PerezChris? What’s he like?
Toni Perez That would be great! What’s her surname?
Chris Cross Yes, that’s me Nice to hear from you again, Martin Teal! Thanks for your kind words, Simone Blanc! I’d love to get together with you in London,
Toni Perez Send me a message when you get here!
Martin Teal Cross? That’s strange I know an Irish woman in London with the same surname But her first name’s Tina We were on a skiing course together last winter I think she’s a tour guide, but I can’t understand why – she’s very quiet and she isn’t very friendly She wasn’t very popular on the course, to be honest!
Simone Blanc She She’s a woman! She’s fantastic – very warm and friendly
She works in the British Museum, actually She’s brilliant – she speaks about five languages She knows a lot about the history of London I’m sure she would be happy to show you around
Share
Trang 31 SPEAKING
a Ask and answer the questions with a partner
1 These people are waiting in a queue Do you mind queuing?
2 What do you do while you’re waiting?
BETTER READING: SKIMMING
It’s often useful to skim a text (read the text quickly to get
a general idea of what it’s about), before you spend time
reading more carefully We skim a text when we’re not sure
whether or not to read it If we decide it looks interesting or
useful, we then read it again more carefully.
Skim texts A and B on page 2 Match one text to Harry and
the other to Emma.
Harry: ‘I don’t have much time.’
Emma: ‘I’m looking for work at the moment.’
a Read text A on page 2 again Which of these things do you know that Matt does in queues? How do you know?
eat read listen to music watch films sit draw pictures
b Read text B Decide if the sentences are true or false
1 People who use IQ4U think it’s good.
2 IQ4U can get a new passport for you.
3 If you use IQ4U, you don’t have to queue to buy things.
4 IQ4U will deliver things to your home for free.
5 IQ4U customers don’t like waiting in queues.
c Find words in the texts with these meanings
1 To get money for the work you do
2 Something to put power into your phone or tablet
3 A page with questions about your personal information
4 Believe somebody; not worry that somebody is bad
5 Take something to an address for someone
6 Money for the bus, train, etc
7 A job you can pay people to do for you
a Ask and answer the questions with a partner
1 Would you use the IQ4U service? Why / Why not?
2 Do you think the IQ4U service would work in your country? Why / Why not?
3 Do you know any other unusual services like this one?
Unit 2
Queuing Unit 2
Cambridge English Empower A2 READING PLUS
Trang 4Here’s what Matt says about it:
Wanted:
He gets money for doing
nothing
Be like Matt – Come and
work for I O 4U.com!
‘Everybody hates waiting in queues, right? But it’s
all about being ready for it I always take a tablet
with some movies, plus a charger, a picnic, a good
book and a beach chair It’s not so different from
being at home – and you get money for it What’s
not to like?’
Simply log on to IQ4U and fill out the form!
I O 4U.com
Service 1: Wait & Call
This is good when you need a new passport, for example We take your place in the queue
When we are near the front of the queue, we call you to come and do your business.
Service 2: Stand & Deliver
This is good for concert tickets or new technology products We stand in the queue, buy your ticket or new phone and then take it
to your address.
How much does it cost?You pay £20 for the first hour and £15 for each hour after that, plus travel costs for our Stand & Deliver service.
Our promise to you
We get what we wait for, or you don’t pay! What customers have said about I O 4U.com
Who are we?
I O 4U.com is the first queuing service in the city You can trust us – our customers are always happy to give us five stars, and we want to keep
‘Why did it take so long for somebody
to start the IQ4U service?!’
‘When a guy from IQ4U arrives with my ticket in his hand and a sleeping bag under his arm, I know it’s a good service.’
Trang 51 Where are these places? Why do millions
of tourists take photos of them?
2 What is the typical picture postcard image
of your country?
BETTER READING: PREDICTION
You can read more easily when you have an idea of what
the text will be about The title and pictures can help
predict this.
Look at the title of the text and the photo with its caption
on page 2 What do you think this text will be about? Tick ✓
two of the topics below Now skim (read the text quickly) to
see if your ideas are correct.
1 Italy from north to south
2 The daily life of a gondolier
3 What gondoliers think of their customers
4 The history of Venice Airport
a Read the text again Match paragraphs 1–4 with topics
a–d below Were your predictions in exercise 2 correct?
a The gondoliers of Venice
b Marco and his gondola
c The city and the tourists
d Marco’s job and the customers
b Answer the questions
Who or what … ?
1 cost 50,000 euros
2 sings Italian songs
3 got her licence in 2010
The Eiffel Tower
The Statue of Liberty The Blue Mosque
c Find words in the text with these meanings
1 Not big from side to side (paragraph 1)
2 A tool for taking photos of yourself with a smartphone (paragraph 2)
3 A document you need to become a gondolier (paragraph 3)
4 Things which tourists buy to remember a place (paragraph 4)
5 Large numbers of people (paragraph 4)
d Choose the best endings for the sentences
1 Marco …
a is famous c likes taking photos.
b is careful with his gondola.
2 Marco’s customers …
a are all very nice c often sing.
b are always dangerous.
3 Gondoliers have to …
a pass an exam b be Italian c be men.
4 The streets of Venice are …
Unit 3
Tourism Unit 3
Cambridge English Empower A2 READING PLUS
Trang 63 SPEAKING
a Ask and answer the questions with a partner
1 What do you think it would be like to live in a place with a lot
of tourists?
2 Do you prefer crowded or quiet places?
3 Do you like meeting new people? Why / Why not?
Interview with
1 Everybody wants a photo of Marco, but
not because he’s famous It’s because of
the boat he owns – the typical boat of
Venice, a gondola He spends each day
going along the narrow canals of the
city, but he never hits the walls ‘I don’t
want to damage the gondola,’ he says ‘It
cost 50,000 euros!’
2 ‘Do you enjoy your job?,’ I ask ‘It’s all
I know’, Marco replies His father was
a gondolier, and Marco learned how to
move a gondola around Venice a long
time before he learnt to drive a car I
ask him about his customers ‘They’re
a mix of people – some are very nice,
others are crazy,’ he says ‘They always
use their selfie sticks to take photos, and
they sometimes get in the way of other
boats – it’s quite dangerous, actually
And they often start singing Italian songs
like O Sole Mio while we’re going along
the canal What a terrible noise!’
3 There are around 450 licensed gondolas in Venice today However, we don’t see any women gondoliers,
so I ask Marco about this ‘There’s one’, he says ‘Her name’s Giorgia, and she got her licence in 2010.’ I’m
a bit surprised there is only one woman gondolier, but Marco doesn’t understand either ‘I don’t know why there aren’t more,’ he says ‘I know that women sometimes try to get a licence, but they usually fail the exam.’ He explains that the exam is very difficult, including knowing about the weather, finding places in the city, knowing about history and speaking foreign languages ‘But I don’t suppose it’s more difficult for a woman than it is for a man,’ he adds
4 I want to know what Marco thinks of his home city, Venice ‘It’s crazy,’ he says ‘You can’t walk along the streets easily anymore because of the crowds So many people! And it’s hard to find a normal shop – most of them only sell souvenirs for tourists.’ When he has a few days free, Marco always goes to the mountains
‘It’s nice just to walk normally,’ he says But then he always returns to Venice and the tourists ‘Tourists,’
he says, ‘We can’t live with them, but we can’t live without them!’
Trang 71 SPEAKING
a What is your favourite dish? Tell a partner Talk
about …
• What it’s made from (e.g rice, chicken, eggs)
• Why you like it
How do you like your food? Tasty? Healthy? Interesting?
Cheap and easy to prepare? Or maybe you’d like a bit
more than that – maybe you’d like it to be dangerous too?
If you’re one of these people, then a dish of pufferfish
is the food for you! It’s a strange animal and looks like a
swimming football But more about that later First let’s
have a look at some more common dangerous foods.
Salad
This is maybe the most dangerous food
there is, and that’s because it can be covered
with bacteria such as salmonella Greens
such as lettuce go through many hands on
their journey from the field to your plate,
and they’re not always clean hands!
Red meat
It’s not going to kill you immediately, but it’s often full of salt and fat And if you eat too much
of it, you increase the amount of bad cholesterol
in your blood, you increase your blood pressure and you put yourself in danger of heart
disease That’s why people who don’t like to eat dangerously go for healthier food like salad But that’s not completely safe either
READING PLUS Food
Unit 4
Cambridge English Empower A2 READING PLUS
Trang 8BETTER READING:
GUESSING THE MEANING OF SPECIALIST WORDS
No matter how well you speak a language, there will be
words you don’t know These will sometimes be specialist
words, for example science or technology words You can still
understand the text, but you will need to guess what kind
of thing the word refers to Looking at other words before or
after the specialist word can help.
Find these science words in the text on page 1 Read
carefully the sentences where you find them and decide
what the words are examples of.
amanita cholesterol cyanide salmonella
tetrodotoxin
c For each sentence, answer the question, ‘What is it?’
1 It looks like a swimming football.
2 It puts you in danger of heart disease.
3 It may be covered in bacteria.
4 It’s red and white.
5 It’s more dangerous than cyanide.
6 It can kill 30 people.
d Find one true sentence below Correct the false sentences
1 Eating red meat gives you heart disease.
2 Salad is bad for you.
3 Amanita mushrooms are safe to eat.
4 All mushrooms are dangerous.
5 A dish of pufferfish is expensive.
6 Eating pufferfish will kill you.
Pufferfish
Our swimming football is a very popular dish in
Japan, but some parts of the fish contain a very
strong poison called tetrodotoxin, 1,200 times more
dangerous than cyanide You don’t need to eat a lot
of it – one fish can kill 30 people! You need special
training to prepare pufferfish safely The dangerous
parts must be cut out very carefully This means that
a meal of fugu (its name in Japanese) can be very
expensive They say it’s delicious, but there is a price
to pay – and not only in money Each year around
50 people have to go to hospital after eating it, and
some of them die So over to you – if someone offers
you a dish of fugu, what will you do?
Trang 91 SPEAKING
a What do you know about Canada and the city of
Montreal? Talk about some of these things:
1 No trip to Montreal would be complete without a visit
to the underground city, or RÉSO as it’s known It’s used
by half a million people every day and is the largest
complex of its kind in Canada, or the rest of world So
what is it, and what can you do there?
2 What is RÉSO?
RÉSO is 32 kilometres of tunnels which join together
office buildings, shopping malls, art centres, concert
halls and university buildings There are bus, train and
metro stations serving the complex Although it’s called
an underground city, some of the tunnels are on or
above the ground – it would be more correct to call it an
indoor pedestrian complex But being indoors is a good
thing in a town where winter temperatures can drop
below –30°C!
3 Shopping
You can easily spend a day shopping in RÉSO There
are over 2,000 shops, including two large department
stores If you need to break for a meal, there are 200
restaurants There are even hotels if you want to make
your shopping trip longer!
4 Entertainment
There are 40 cinemas to choose between as well as concert halls and art exhibitions from the most important Montreal museums There is also a hockey arena and a library, and if you want to continue later into the evening, there are a number of nightclubs
5 Business
With around 1,200 offices as well as a lot of banks, three exhibition halls and a conference centre, RÉSO is really the main part of Montreal’s central business district
6 Visiting RÉSO
Tourists will be very surprised by this network of tunnels which connects the whole of downtown Montreal The best way to get there is underground – there are a number of different metro stations, and the most popular
is McGill But it’s easy to get lost down here, so be sure
to carry a map One thing you won’t need is a coat – the temperature is always comfortable and it never rains!
Underground City
READING PLUS Shopping
Unit 5
Cambridge English Empower A2 READING PLUS
Trang 10b Find these numbers in the text on page 1 What do they
c Answer the questions
1 Why is it a good idea to visit RÉSO in the Canadian winter?
2 Why is the phrase ‘underground city’ not completely correct?
3 What sport can you play in RÉSO?
4 Does RÉSO close at night? How do you know?
5 What is ‘McGill’?
6 Why don’t you need an umbrella to walk there?
d Find words with these meanings
1 A large building or group of buildings with many parts
(paragraph 1)
2 A person on foot, not in a car (paragraph 2)
3 A big shop with different areas selling different things
(paragraph 3)
4 Long corridors, usually under the ground (paragraph 2)
5 Places to meet and dance at night (paragraph 4)
6 Places for very large business meetings (paragraph 5)
7 A display of artworks or other things (paragraph 4)
8 Something like a spider’s web (paragraph 6)
BETTER READING:
INCREASING READING SPEED
When we read, we usually focus on the content words (for example, verbs, nouns, adverbs and adjectives), and we don’t focus on the function words, such as auxiliary verbs and articles This helps us to read quickly.
1 Do the reading tasks below
• Read paragraphs 1 and 2 of the text on page 1 and time yourself Calculate your words-per-minute reading speed (there are 134 words).
• Work in pairs Underline the content words in paragraphs 3 and 4 Then read the paragraphs, focusing on the underlined words and time yourselves Calculate your reading speed (there are 93 words).
• Repeat with paragraphs 5 and 6 – this time without underlining content words, just focusing on them, and again calculate your words-per-minute reading speed (there are 106 words)
a Ask and answer the questions with a partner
1 There are flats in RÉSO Would you like to live in one? Why / Why not?
2 Do you prefer markets, shops, shopping centres or online shopping? Why?
Trang 111 SPEAKING
a Ask and answer the question with a partner
1 Do you think siblings (brothers and sisters) usually get on
well together? Why / Why not?
1 My brother and I share the same parents We grew up
in the same house We had the same hobbies as kids –
we both bought guitars, we both wore the shirts of our
favourite football teams, we both spent time building
models Now, as adults, we look a bit like each other,
but that’s all In terms of personality, we’re completely
different I’m single, self-employed and you’ll never see
me wearing a suit and tie My brother is married with kids
and a conventional job and has over a hundred ties So
what happened?
2 According to research, it is quite common for brothers
or sisters to look the same but have very different
personalities In fact, siblings have the same personality
in only 20% of cases There are a number of possible
reasons
3 One possible reason is that siblings compare themselves
with one another So, let’s say for example that you were
quite good at sport as a child, but your sister was very
good at it In that case, you perhaps saw yourself as
not being very good at sport and you lost interest in it
Perhaps after that you chose a different interest instead,
such as art.
4 Another possible reason is that the family you grew up in
is actually very different from the family your brother or
sister grew up in If you were the first born child, then with
you your parents had to learn how to be parents from zero
They were probably quite strict If you were the child born
last, your parents already knew how to look after children
They were probably more easy-going with you.
5 There is a big difference between being an oldest or
youngest child, according to research People say that the oldest child is usually more hard-working and does better
at school The oldest child usually gets a better job They say that the youngest child is more fun-loving and creative The youngest child may choose a more unusual career.
6 Which brings us back to me and my brother For us,
research seems to be wrong I am the oldest child, but I chose a more unusual life My brother is the youngest, but
he worked harder at school and got a better, more ‘normal’ job He got married and had children I became an artist and never bought a house So you see – research can tell
us what most people do, not what all people do But my brother is very different from me, so at least the research
got that right!
Unit 6
Cambridge English Empower A2 READING PLUS
Trang 12b Read the article and check your prediction from
exercise 2a
BETTER READING: SKIMMING TO IDENTIFY
THE MAIN IDEA IN A PARAGRAPH
When you’re reading, it isn’t always necessary for you to
understand every detail – you just need to understand the
main idea, or gist, of the text We can also use this strategy
to identify the main ideas in each paragraph.
1 What is the gist of each paragraph in the text?
Match paragraphs 1–6 with topics a–f below
a Strict or easy-going parents
b Research isn’t always right.
c My brother and I are different.
d The differences between first and last child
e Siblings compare their abilities.
f Research on the personalities of siblings
c Find words in the text with these meanings
1 the opposite of married
2 the past tense of wear
3 the opposite of easy-going
4 the past tense of buy
5 the opposite of serious
6 the past tense of know
7 the opposite of conventional
d Choose the best endings for the sentences
1 The writer and his brother …
a look different.
b have the same hobbies.
c had guitars when they were children.
2 In 80% of cases, siblings …
a have different personalities.
b have the same personality.
c look the same
3 When they have their first baby, parents …
a already know how to look after a child.
b learn how to look after a child.
c are usually easy-going.
4 The youngest sibling usually …
a works harder.
b gets a conventional job.
c does something more unusual.
a Ask and answer the questions with a partner
1 Do you have siblings? Compare yourself with them Think about appearance, jobs, interests and personality.
2 If you don’t have siblings, what are the advantages and disadvantages of being an only child?