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