13 Apr 2018

How to do well in A1 Movers Reading and Writing Part 3

Continuing on from my previous post, I’ll now share some tips for doing well in A1 Movers Reading and Writing Part 3.

The task below comes from Sample Papers Volume 1. http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/images/young-learners-sample-papers-2018-vol1.pdf

Tips for students

Start by reading the first one or two sentences in the story. These will give you the context:

Who the story is about (in this example, Jane a girl who loves animals)
The theme/setting (in this case, Jane’s teacher told the class to find pictures of animals).

Next, read the rest of the story to get a feel of how it progresses and how it ends. Do NOT try and fill the gaps yet. Even with the words missing, it’s still possible to understand the story.

Next, look at the pictures and the words. The pictures should help you understand any words that you don’t know or remember.

Think about what kinds of words you see.

Which words are for things? (website, library, address, ideas, hopping?) * ‘hopping’ could be a verb or a noun. Of these words, which are plural? (ideas) Noticing this could help you fill the gaps.
Which words are for actions? (hopping?, bounce) Notice that in this case, we have an -ing form and an infinitive or present form. Very often, there will also be one or two verb forms in the past simple.
Which words are adjectives, words that talk about how someone feels, how big or small something is, your opinion of someone or something, for example? (cleverest, frightened, surprised) Notice that ‘cleverest’ is in the superlative form. This is important to notice.

Next, go back to the text. ‘library’ has already been used in the example. So put a cross ~~through that word,~~ as you won’t use that again for the gaps.

Question 1

Read the story again from the start to the end of the sentence with the first gap.

Jane’s teacher wants them to find pictures of animals. She tells them to ‘look on the (1) ………. I told you about yesterday.’ The word ‘the’ here means that the next word will either be a noun (word for something) OR a superlative adjective.

But a superlative adjective needs to refer to a noun, which we don’t have here.

And you look on a website, so that’s the correct word!

Write ‘website’ on the line for (1) and put a cross ~~through the word~~ on the second page under the picture because you’ve used it.

Question 2

Read the whole sentence – both before and after the gap.

Looking closely at the words before the gap: talk about your different , we can see that we need another noun (word for a thing). The word ‘your’ here gives us that important information.

We have two words for things left – ‘address’ and ‘ideas’. We need a plural word. And we talk about ideas, so this is the correct word for (2).

Put a cross through ‘i~~deas’~~ on the second page because you’ve used it.

Question 3

For this question, especially as there are no more missing words in the second paragraph, read the whole paragraph.

People are (3) …….. of those.

We are talking about a person here (‘People’) We have the verb ‘are’. So we need an adjective.

We have 3 adjectives to choose from:

frightened, surprised, cleverest

The only adjective that fits grammatically into the gap is ‘frightened’ because you are ‘frightened of’ something. You are usually ‘surprised about/that’. ‘Cleverest’ doesn’t normally have a preposition after it.

Put a cross through ‘f~~rightened’~~ on the second page because you’ve used it.

Question 4

Read through the next part of the story up to the end of the sentence before the next missing word.

It’s their tails that make them really good at (4) ……. Their back legs are the strongest too.

You are ‘good at something’ or ‘good at doing something’, aren’t you?

The words for something or doing something we have left to choose from are:

‘address’ and ‘hopping’. Being good at address is not logical.

The answer is ‘hopping’. Write it on the line in (4) and put a cross ~~through the word~~ under the picture.

Question 5

You’re the (5) …… girl in the class.

We have the words ‘address’, ‘surprised’, ‘cleverest’ and ‘bounce’ left.

The only one that fits the gap is ‘cleverest’. The article ‘the’ before the gap helps us because we need ‘the’ before a superlative.

Write ‘cleverest’ on the line in (5).

Question 6

******Very important*****

Lots of students forget to answer this question in the A2 Movers Test! Make sure you don’t miss it! It’s after the pictures and words, on the second page!