My experience at Summer school

by Francoise Armand, aged 13

Last summer I went to a summer school in Oxford to study English. We studied at a college where adults
normally study. The classrooms were very modern. In my classroom at school, the teacher writes on a

blackboard.  The teacher could display photos or video clips on it. It was really cool.
The summer school was different from my normal school in France. The classes were a lot smaller. We
only had sixteen pupils in the class in Oxford, but at my school in France there are over thirty

five.   It was also easier for the teacher to control the class, which meant that we wasted
less time.
The lessons were a lot different to the kind of lessons I’m used to. In my normal school, we have a course

book and we spend our lessons doing exercises from it.   At summer school, though, we
did lots of different activities, such as games, songs and role plays. Because of the variety, I rarely got
bored.
Overnight, we all stayed with different families in the city. I stayed with a couple and their teenage

daughter.  I was forced to speak English! I had to learn the words for things, or to go
without them!
At the time, I didn’t think I learned very much in England. But when I returned to my normal school, I

noticed the improvement.  I had got better by having fun and communicating with English
people. All in all, summer school was a useful experience and I recommend it to all teenagers!

A  I was much more confident than before.

B  I shared a room with one of my classmates, George.
C  None of them spoke any French.
D  It's often difficult for us to get the teacher’s attention.
E  Usually all my lessons are the same.
F  But at the college there was huge electronic board.
G  This helps me to improve my communication skills.
H  This allowed each student to get more individual attention
Five sentences have been removed from the text below. Choose from the sentences A-G the one which
fits each gap. There are three extra sentences which you do not need to use.
Janet Morris was looking for a flat to buy in London. When she saw a top floor flat in Hampstead, she

knew this was the one she wanted.   What she really liked was the flat roof just outside
the large glass windows. She thought that she could turn it into a garden.
           
She bought the flat and contacted a garden designer, Terry Moore. But as soon as Terry saw the roof, he

knew there was a problem.   It certainly wasn’t strong enough to support the weight of soil
and plants. They are really heavy, especially when they become wet.
But Terry did not give up. He contacted an engineer for advice. The engineer said that it was possible to
make the roof stronger. To do this, they would need to say lay many long pieces of metal across the

roof.    It would not be cheap. But Janet didn’t mind paying for it. After all, the roof garden
was the reason she bought the flat.
Another problem was the view from the roof. Janet hoped to enjoy the views of London from her new

garden.   People like their homes to be private. They don’t want strangers looking through
their windows! Janet could only get permission to build her roof garden if there were no views from it. So
pots were fixed around the edge of the flat roof and tall bushes were planted inside. With these in place it

was impossible to see into other people’s homes. That solution satisfied the town planners. 
 She says that her garden is cosy, and she can’t hear the noise of the city traffic.

A  Janet doesn’t mind the lack of view.

B  It wasn’t strong enough even for one person to walk there.
C  But he was pretty sure he could solve the problem.
D  But it was possible to see into other flats from there.
E  The view from the windows of the flat was incredible.
F   The flat itself didn’t attract her attention.
G  These could then be covered with wood to make the garden more attractive.
H  Garden plants could be planted directly into them

Choose the sentences which best fit the gaps.

1.......................................

Bill Gates, the head of Microsoft, the creator of Basic, MSDOS, Windows and Flight Simulator, is the
richest man in America. If you lived to be 70, you would have to make $100 million dollars every year of
your life in order to come up with what Gates is currently worth. 2..................................... Gates himself
draws a salary around $300,000, about a tenth of that claimed by America's best-paid company heads.
He is a one-man band: he works 15-hour days and loses his temper easily. He is addicted to competition,
and to winning. He enjoys poker and fast cars. 3............................................
4............................................. By the time he was 16, he had already set up a company, and was making
money from computing. Maths was his strong subject, important because it shares with programming
the same ways of thinking. Gates was paid to debug the local mainframe, and he also offered a data-
processing service to local authorities. When the first PC appeared on the cover of Popular Computer in
January 1975, Gates, then 19, phoned the manufacturer. He claimed he had a version of Basic for the
8080 microprocessor and was ready to do business. Working night and day, Gates and a friend squeezed
the language into 4K with enough space left over to run a programme. 5............................................ The
coding certainly required a high level of ingenuity. Things were done so quickly that a bootstrap loader
had to be written on the flight to deliver the completed tape. 6............................................... Gates never
forgot how his Basic was immediately pirated by computer companies all over the world. He became a
very sharp businessman indeed, unwilling to give anyone a free ride. A typical example of the Gates
technique can be demonstrated by his relationship with IBM. IBM split with Microsoft and produced its
own version of OS/2 to compete with Windows. 7.............................................. When OS/2 had to be
Windows-compatible to stand a chance of survival, Microsoft released Windows 3.1 and made other
changes so that IBM's product was compatible only with last year's model. 8.............................................
They wear T-shirts and anoraks, eat pizzas and read sci-fi, but they know more than the difference
between ROM and RAM, and they shall inherit the earth.

A. It was a task so difficult that many claimed it was impossible.

B. Above all, he is a technical whiz kid.

C. It's a hard life competing against the new technicians.

D. By a miracle, the tape worked when it was loaded.

E. IBM is company whose management were tied to old technology.

F. Of course, that wealth is largely the result of Microsoft's astronomical share price.

G. Gates started early. H. But Microsoft makes money on every copy of OS/2 that IBM sells.

I. How do you become a billionaire?

THE FOUNDING OF PHILADELPHIA

The woodlands were alive with color when William Penn arrived for the first time, in 1682. It was late
October, still the best time of the year in the Northeast. But he wasn’t there to admire the countryside.
(0) ______ He had already given it a name, of course. It was the same name as that of one of the early
Christian cities in Asia Minor which, when translated, means “City of Brotherly Love”. (1) ______ Penn
borrowed the name from them because it suited perfectly the ideal community he had in mind. The spot
he picked, on the banks of the Delaware River, had a small harbor and a beach. (2) ______ What he
wanted, he said, was a “green country town”. In his travels he had seen the great cities of Europe and
hadn’t always liked what he saw. (3) ______ His new city would have a plan for growth and that, he was
convinced, would make it one of the great cities of the world. For openers, he ordered that Philadelphia
would have no crooked streets. (4) ______ He told his surveyors that he also wanted the roads to lead
out of the city, so that it would be convenient to reach other cities yet unbuilt. (5) ______ He specified
that no houses could be built within 200 paces of the harbor so there would be plenty of room for a
future commercial center, and he asked that home builders center their structures on building lots “…so
there may be ground on each side for gardens, orchards or field, that it may be a green country town
which will never be burnt and will always be wholesome.”

A They would all be straight and wide, and they would all lead to the river.

B It had been taken by a religious group in England, whose beliefs were similar to those of the Quakers,
for an ideal community they had hoped to establish.

C He pointed out that new streets would eventually have to be added and ordered that space be left for
them before any land was sold for building.

D Before arriving in America, Penn sent a letter to the Indians which he ended “I am your loving friend.”
E The land around it was high enough to provide a perfect place for a city and William Penn had a
perfect city in mind.

F There was work to be done; not least finding the right spot for the city that would be the centerpiece
of his new colony.

G He was also well aware of the cities that had already been established in the New World and knew
they were growing without a plan.