Page 28 - On Screen Leaflet

Reading 2a
Read the text and the questions
below. For each question, choose
the correct letter A, B, C or D.
2
Getting locked out of your house or car can ruin your day, but
when you’re floating in darkest space, spinning high above the
Earth, then getting locked out is more than frustrating – it’s a
matter of life and death.
Picture this: you’re an astronaut doing repairs to the outside of the
Mir space station. Earth is 358 kilometres beneath you and you’re
travelling at 8 kilometres per second. There are no other people nearby
to help you and the only thing attaching you to the space station is a
cable. The safe thing to do is to get the repairs done quickly and get back
in the space station. But what if you can’t get back inside? This is exactly
what happened to Dave Wolf and Anatoly Solovyev in late 1997. They
were locked out in space.
Dave had been conducting experiments aboard the Russian space
station Mir when he had to do his very first spacewalk. He needed to
carry out some repairs on the station. Anatoly and Dave floated out of
the airlock and made sure that the cables connecting them to the space
station were secure. When they had finished the repairs they made their
way back. To their horror, the airlock was broken and they couldn’t get
back inside. Time was running out . They only had a little bit of oxygen
left so they had a tough decision to make – do something extreme or
face a slow death in space.
Instead of panicking they thought about their options and decided to
take a big risk. Mir was a laboratory in space made up of different sections.
Dave decided to head for the airlock in the living area of the space station.
That wasn’t as easy as it sounded though. They would have to disconnect
their space suits from the space station and float around to the other
airlock. This was incredibly dangerous. One mistake and they would fly off
into space forever. To make it worse, their space suits’ cooling system would
stop working as soon as they disconnected. That meant they had just a few
minutes before they started to boil. They untied themselves and moved off.
Luckily , the other airlock worked and they climbed in. Without the
cooling system, the temperature had risen inside Dave’s spacesuit and
his helmet’s visor* was fogged up with moisture – he couldn’t see
where he was going. He made a tiny gap to see through by spitting and
saw that he was back inside the living area. Dave and Anatoly had made
it. Dave Wolf remained on Mir for 128 days and went on more
spacewalks, but it’s the first that he remembers the best, because it was
so very close to being his last.
A
B
C
D
16
* visor = part of a helmet which is pulled down to protect someone’s face
A FAMILY INJURED IN STORM
B HUGE WAVES FLOOD TOWN
C NARROW ESCAPE FOR FAMILY
D STORM DAMAGE TO PROPERTY
A family was almost swept out to sea in
Cornwall yesterday. They were walking
along a sea wall when a giant 20-foot
wave came over the top, almost
knocking them off their feet. The incident
could have been extremely dangerous
but the mother, father and three children
were able to get off the wall in time. They
were unharmed, apart from getting
extremely wet. Experts say it was lucky
the 100-year-old sea wall didn’t collapse.
Two deaths have occurred this year
under similar circumstances. Police
warn people to keep away from the sea
during stormy weather conditions.
Multiple choice
Preparing for the task
Read the extract. Which title
A, B, C or D best sums up what
the extract is about? Use the
underlined phrases to help you.
1
The last question is a global one testing the main idea of the text.
Each of the options contain words that appear to paraphrase what is
said throughout the text, but only one option is correct.
SAMPLE PAGE FROM WORKBOOK
& GRAMMAR BOOK
Peparing for the exam sections
introduce learners to various exam
tasks & help them reduce stress &
improve their performance