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You are going to read a magazine article about a company called Holiday on Ice, which puts on iceskating shows. For questions 1-8, choose the answer (А-D) which you think fits best according to the text. What is the secret of Holiday on Ice's long-lasting success? Hilary Rose reports But what does the production involve? And why are so many people prepared to spend their lives travelling round Europe in caravans in order to appear in it? It can't be glamorous, and it's undoubtedly hard work. The backstage atmosphere is an odd mix of gym class and workplace. A curtained-off section at the back of the arena is laughably referred to as the girls' dressing room, but is more accurately described as a corridor, with beige, cracked walls and cheap temporary tables set up along the length of it. Each girl has a small area littered with pots of orange make-up, tubes of mascara and long false eyelashes. As a place to work, it must rank pretty low down the scale: the area round the ice-rink is grey and mucky with rows of dirty blue and brown plastic seating and red carpet tiles. It's an unimpressive picture, but the show itself is an unquestionably vast, polished global enterprise: the lights come from a firm in Texas, the people who make the audio system are in California, but Montreal supplies the smoke effects; former British Olympic skater Robin Cousins is now creative director for the company and conducts a vast master class to make sure they're ready for the show's next performance. The next day, as the music blares out from the sound system, the cast start to go through their routines under Cousins' direction. Cousins says, The aim is to make sure they're all still getting to exactly the right place on the ice at the right time - largely because the banks of lights in the ceiling are set to those places, and if the skaters are all half a metre out they'll be illuminating empty ice. Our challenge,' he continues, is to produce something they can sell in a number of countries at the same time. My theory is that you take those things that people want to see and you give it to them, but not in the way they expect to see it. You try to twist it. And you have to find music that is challenging to the skaters, because they have to do it every night.' It may be a job which he took to pay the rent, but you can't doubt his enthusiasm. The only place you'll see certain skating moves is an ice show,' he says, 'because you're not allowed to do them in competition. It's not in the rules. So the ice show world has things to offer which the competitive world just doesn't.' Cousins knows what he's talking about because he skated for the show himself when he stopped competing - he was financially unable to retire. He learnt the hard way that you can't put on an Olympic performance every night. 'I'd be thinking, these people have paid their money, now do your stuff, and I suddenly thought, "I really can't cope. I'm not enjoying it".' The solution, he realised, was to give 75 per cent every night, rather than striving for the sort of twice-a-year excellence which won him medals. To be honest, for those of us whose only experience of ice-skating is watching top-class Olympic skaters, some of the movements can look a bit amateurish, but then, who are we to judge? Equally, it's impossible not to be swept up in the whole thing; well, you'd have to try pretty hard not to enjoy it.
1 What surprises the writer about the popularity of Holiday on Ice?
2 The writer describes the backstage area in order to show
3 What does the writer highlight about the show in the third paragraph?
4 For Robin Cousins, the key point when rehearsing skating routines is
5 Cousins believes that he can meet the challenge of producing shows for different audiences
6 What does Cousins suggest in paragraph 5 about skating in shows?
7 What is meant by 'the hard way' in paragraph 5?
8 What conclusion does the writer draw about Holiday on Ice?
You are going to read a newspaper article about a woman who spent last year as a judge for the British Theatre Awards. Seven sentences have been removed from the article. Choose from the sentences A-H the one which fits each gap (9-15). There is one extra sentence which you do not need to use.
You are going to read an article in which four people describe their best teacher. For questions 16-30, choose from the people (A-D). The people may be chosen more than once.
For questions 31-42, read the text below and decide which answer (А-D) best fits each gap. I earn a living as a freelance wildlife cameraman working all over the world. It is my job to provide the 31_____ material from which a natural history programme is 32_____ up. If the lifestyle agrees with you, the travel and the filming can be great. There is fantastic variety: I often do not have the slightest 33_____ where I am going or what I will see. There is also a certain pleasure in 34_____ some of the film you take on TV, though as I am often away working, I do not always 35_____ the programmes when they are shown. It is unusual to get an 'easy' filming job. One of the most challenging things is 36_____ your sense of humour under sometimes difficult circumstances. I 37_____ to work in the region of 300 days a year and I often 38_____ I had more time to play my guitar or see friends. Sometimes there is no 39_____ even unpacking, when I get home. But it is an amazing job, even though there are frustrations. What I hate most is flying - I really cannot 40_____ with that. All things 41_____ if it were not for the flying, this job would be 42_____ about perfect.
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