First Certificate Reading and Use of English 5 with examples

FCE Course Lesson 23 – First Certificate Reading and Use of English 5 with examples

In this lesson you will be presented with a recording of the first certificate test with tips to help you prepare for the exam. Reading and Use of English contains a question type called Open Cloze. Here the focus is on grammar and vocabulary. They give you 8 gaps to complete (plus a gap that is given as an example). The purpose of this activity is to test students’ knowledge of language and text comprehension.

Dialogue 23: Lindsay Lohan

For such a young age, Lindsay Lohan has lived a rollercoaster of a life. First finding fame in Disney hit ‘Parent Trap’ in 1998, she then went on to star in arguably the biggest teen movie ever made ‘Mean Girls’. However, with these career highs, came personal lows. These included numerous stints in rehab and a total of four arrests where she had to serve time in jail and complete community service for driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol and shoplifting an item of jewellery. Now, fully on her road to recovery, Lindsay is ready to open up about her experiences, even going as far as to star in a new fly on the wall reality show about her life, which makes its debut on Monday 31st March at 9pm. Here, our reporter Fran Hampson talks to Lindsay about what she’s been through and how she feels now that she has came out on the other side.

FRAN: Hi Lindsay, how are you?

LINDSAY: I’m good thank you, how are you?

FRAN: Great thanks, ok so tell me about your documentary show. What sort of things can we expect?

LINDSAY: Oh my gosh I’m super excited. I can’t wait for the show to air to just give the public an insight into my world. It’s about time that an honest perspective was given because for years, every single thing I have done has been manipulated and scrutinised by other types of media, like newspapers and magazines. No offence! Hahaha.

FRAN: None taken haha, I’m not blind to the hell that my industry puts people like yourself through. It’s not surprising that celebrities crack under the pressure of constantly being in the public eye.

LINDSAY: Exactly, and I had it from such a young age, you know. I mean, things did die down after ‘Parent Trap’, my next movie wasn’t until ‘Mean Girls’ six years later and after that things went kind of crazy. I was only 18 at that time, I was still a kid. After that movie was released, I had to say goodbye to so many aspects of my life. I couldn’t go out and share typical teenage moments with my friends and yeah, it was tough. Before I knew it, I was being offered these elusive things like alcohol and VIP parties and yeah, drugs. That’s when things started to spiral out of control. In hindsight, of course I wish I had never gone near things like this. But I don’t believe in regrets and I live by the motto ‘Never a mistake, always a lesson’. I’m done with that party lifestyle now and ultimately I wouldn’t be the person I am today if I hadn’t done what I did.

FRAN: Absolutely, you have to go through the downs to appreciate the ups don’t you. Was there a moment when you knew things had to change?

LINDSAY: Yes. When I was sentenced the last time in 2011, I looked behind me in court and saw my mom crying her eyes out, there was so much pain behind her eyes. I love this woman more than anybody else on the planet, and to have done this to her for the third time made me feel sick to my stomach. It was then that I realised enough was enough.

FRAN: And this is the famous conviction where you only served 5 hours out of your 30 day sentence, right?

LINDSAY: Yeah, that’s it. After that I did community service.

FRAN: Ok, and did you go back into rehab after this?

LINDSAY: Yes, but this time it wasn’t court ordered, I checked myself in because I despised the person I had become. I didn’t need a mandatory rehab stint to give me a kick up the butt, I knew what I had to do.

FRAN: That’s admirable. What advice would you give to breakthrough teen stars who are coming up in the celebrity world.

LINDSAY: I’d tell them to not forget who you are in the blur of parties and fun and celebrity friends. Have fun, yes, but stick to good values and stay close to family and friends who can bring you back down to earth from cloud nine.

FRAN: Excellent. Thanks for the chat Lindsay.

LINDSAY: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Vocabulary Reading Skills and Use of English for the first certificate 5.

ENGLISH	SYNONYM or DEFINITION
a rollercoaster	(figurative) repeated rise and fall of something
arguably	questionable
a stint	a time period
to serve time in jail	to spend time in prison
a fly on the wall	type of documentary
to air	to broadcast
insight into	knowledge, understanding
to scrutinise	to examine closely
to crack (under the pressure)	to break
tough	difficult
elusive	evasive
in hindsight	in retrospect
ultimately	basically, finally
to be sentenced	to receive a judgment
to despise	to be contemptuous of
a blur	a smear, unclear distinctions due to motion
cloud nine	state of joy and bliss

Exam tips Reading Skills and Use of English 5

EXAM TIP FOR First Reading Skills and Use of English 5

Reading and Use of English part 2 is called Open Cloze. Here the focus in on grammar and vocabulary. You are given 8 gaps to complete (plus one gap which is given as an example).

The purpose of this activity is to test the knowledge of students of language and understanding of the text.

Unlike part 1 (Multiple-Choice Cloze) you are not given any options or sets of words to choose from. You have to come up with the word by yourself.

Gaps can be filled with:

articles (definite and indefinite articles such as “the”, “a”, “an”),
auxiliaries including modal verbs (“be”, “am”, “has”, “must”, “could”, “will”…),
prepositions (“for”, “to”, “on”, “at”, “as or like”, “too or enough”…),
adverbs and conjunctions (as, than: especially in the context of comparisons)
pronouns (personal, demonstrative, possessive, and relative pronouns such as: him, her, theirs, this, that, whose, which…)
linkers or linking words (although, however…)
and words within set phrases (such as phrasal verbs)

Advice:

Gaps will also have to be filled with 1 word only
Spelling must be correct
Misuse of punctuation in this activity is ignored by the examiners
Read the whole text quickly before you start answering the questions. A lot of the words missing will be easier to find if you understand the general context. From the context you will be able to understand what word class is missing (pronoun, preposition, verb, determiner…) and its connotation (negative or positive)
Like in other cloze activities, read the words before and after the gap. This will help you find what is missing in the gap.
Be careful when the answer is a verb. This verbal form must agree with the subject (he does…)
Do not use abbreviations, i.e. “sthg” instead of “something”
Do not forget to transfer your answers to the Answer Sheet, firmly and clearly marked in pencil.