Listening Comprehension: Education

THE BOOKMOBILE: 

How a book changed my life

1. Watch the video and decide if the following statements about the girl in the video, Storm, are true or false.

1 She grew up in a poor family.
2 She owned a lot of books.
3 She found volcanoes really exciting.
4 She didn’t really enjoy reading.
5 When she was 15 she left the migrant camps.

2. Match the opinion adverbs on the left with their meaning on the right. 

3. Choose the best option to complete each sentence

1. The people next door are moving away. Apparently/Naturally she has a new job in a different city.
2. Josie is so clever. Luckily/Naturally she got very good results in her exams.
3. Malcolm just got a promotion and a pay rise. Foolishly/Clearly he is good at his job.
4. I left my purse in the back of a taxi. Luckily/Honestly the driver found it and rang me.
5. Foolishly/Undoubtedly I agreed to see the film. What a mistake, it was terrible!
6. Honestly/Apparently, I have no idea where he is.




ANSWERS

1. 

1. She grew up in a poor family- True. Storm says that she was often hungry. 

2. She owned a lot of books- False. Storm says that she wasn’t allowed to have books because they weren’t portable enough.

3. She found volcanoes really exciting.- False- she was anxious about them.

4. She didn’t really enjoy reading.- False- she says she ‘devoured’ the books, meaning that she read them so fast it was like eating them. 

5. When she was 15 she left the migrant camps.- True.

2.

 3. 

1. The people next door are moving away. Apparently she has a new job in a different city. 

2. Josie is so clever. Naturally she got very good results in her exams. 

3. Malcolm just got a promotion and a pay rise. Clearly he is good at his job. 

4. I left my purse in the back of a taxi. Luckily the driver found it and rang me. 

5. Foolishly I agreed to see the film. What a mistake, it was terrible! 

6. Honestly, I have no idea where he is.

TEXT

Storm Reyes (SM) SM: The conditions were pretty terrible. I once told someone that I learned to fight with a knife long before I learned how to ride a bicycle. And when you are grinding day after day after day, there is no room in you for hope. There just isn’t. You don’t even know it exists. There’s nothing to aspire to except filling your hungry belly. That’s how I was raised. But when I was 12, a bookmobile came to the fields. And you have to understand that I wasn’t allowed to have books, because books are heavy, and when you’re moving a lot you have to keep things just as minimal as possible. So when I saw this big vehicle on the side of the road, and it was filled with books, I immediately stepped back. Fortunately when the staff member saw me, kind of waved me in, and said, “These are books, and you can take one home. You have to bring it back in two weeks, but you can take them home and read them.” I’m like, “What’s the catch?” And he explained to me there was no catch. Then he asked me what I was interested in. And the night before the bookmobile had come, in the camps, there was an elder who was telling us about the day that Mount Rainier blew up, and the devastation from the volcano. So I told the bookmobile person that I was a little nervous about the mountain blowing up. And he said, “You know, the more you know about something, the less you will fear it.” And then he gave me a book about volcanos. And then I saw a book about dinosaurs. I said “Oh, that looks neat.” So he gave me a book about dinosaurs. And I took them home, and I devoured them. I didn’t just read them, I devoured them. And I came back in two weeks and had more questions. And he gave me more books and that started it. That taught me that hope was not just a word. And it gave me the courage to leave the camps. That’s where the books made the difference. By the time I was 15, I knew there was a world outside of the camps. I believed I could find a place in it. And I did.


Sources:

1. Elt-Resourceful
2. Youtube
3. Elt-Resourceful Answers