Activities for CAE Reading texts (text taken from online CAE Teacher Handbook

http://cambridge-english-advanced.cambridgeesol.org/exam-preparation)

1. Introduction to text topic – elicit book genres and student favourites

2. Vocabulary from text

a. Collocation matching exercise

b. A + B vocabulary ladder

3. Dictogloss activity with text C

4. Translation activity using text A

5. Gap fill with text B

6. Question preparation

1. Book genres

Look at these book covers and write the name of the genre.

Which do you particularly enjoy reading? Tell your partner.

Can you think of any more?

1. 2. 3.

4. 5. 6.

7. 8. 9. 10.

Answers: 1. Mystery 2. Horror 3. Crime 4. Children’s 5. Fantasy 6. Romance 7. Science Fiction 8. Thriller 9. Historical

Fiction 10. Non-fiction

2. Vocabulary from the text

a. Collocation matching exercise

Match the verbs with the appropriate ending from the text:

Draw the present

Haunt successful transitions

Glimpse to a close

Grasp its twisted logic

Lead the truth

Make the reader astray

Answers:

Draw to a close

Haunt the present

Glimpse the truth

Grasp its twisted logic

Lead the reader astray

Make successful transitions

b. A + B Vocabulary Ladder

Explain the vocabulary in your ladder to your partner and write the words they define for you:

A:

You Your Partner

B:

You Your Partner

2. intricately

Finish

1.deservedly

Start

3. fast-paced

4. twisted

6. ruthlessly

Finish

5. acclaimed

Start

7. paperback

8. debut

3. Dictogloss with Text C

Read text C out to your students twice (or 3 times if this is the first

time you have done this type of activity). Ask them to make notes as

you read (notes – this is not a dictaction!).

Give them time in pairs to reconstruct the text orally from their notes.

Then choose:

Reconstruct the text in written form at the end of the class /

for homework / beginning of the next class

Use their notes to orally reconstruct the text next class /

record themselves at home

4. Translation activity with Text A

Translation 1:

“Preoccupied with developing strong plots and

characterisation rather than with crime itself, she

has created some disturbing and innovative

psychological narratives. The Shape of Snakes is

set in the winter of 1978.”

Translation into Spanish:

Now give this Spanish version of the text to a classmate and ask him/her to translate it back into English!

Back-Translation into Spanish:

Translation 2:

“Once again Walters uses her narrative skills

to lead the reader astray (there is clever use of

correspondence between characters), before

resolving the mystery in her latest intricately

plotted bestseller which is full of suspense.”

Translation into Spanish:

Now give this Spanish version of the text to a classmate and ask him/her to translate it back into English!

Back-Translation into Spanish:

5. Gap fill with Text B:

B Elizabeth Woodcraft’s feisty barrister

____________1. in Good Bad Woman, Frankie,

is a diehard Motown music fan. As ______2.

title suggests, despite her job on the right side

of the law, she ends up on the wrong side –

arrested ______3. murder. No favourite of the

police _________4. are happy to see her go

down – in order to prove her innocence she

must solve the case, ________5. that involves

an old friend and _______6. uncomfortable

truths a bit too close to home. Good Bad

Woman is an enthralling, fast-paced

contemporary thriller that presents _______7.

great new heroine to the genre.

What types of words have mostly been gap-filled?

Answers:

1. Heroine

2. The

3. For

4. Are

5. One

6. Some

7. a

6. Question preparation:

The exam question is:

“In which review are the following mentioned:”

Prepare some statements for texts A, B, C and D and test your classmates. Then do the actual exam question. Which set of questions was more difficult?

“In which review are the following mentioned:”

1.

2.

3.

4.

Exam Question:

In which review are the following mentioned? -a book successfully adapted for another medium

20

-characters whose ideal world seems totally secure 21

-a gripping book which introduces an impressive main character 22

-a character whose intuition is challenged 23

-an original and provocative line in storytelling 24