Exam E2

Complete the paragraph with the words in the box. There are two extra words.

• achieve
• begin
• company
• dream
• earn
• expensive
• interested in
• plan
• practice
• smart

Complete each sentence with a word from the box. Not all words are needed.

REACHING FOR THE SKY 

In 2007, Barrington Irving became the youngest person to fly solo around the world. He was just 23 years old – and he built the plane himself. How did he achieve this?

A PASSION FOR FLYING 

Irving’s interest in flying started when he was 15. He was working in his parents’ bookstore in Miami, Florida. One of the customers was a pilot, Gary Robinson. One day, Robinson asked Irving if he was interested in flying. Irving didn’t think he was smart enough. But the next day, Robinson took Irving to an airport. He showed Irving inside the cockpit of a Boeing 777. That experience changed Irving’s life.

Irving really wanted to fly, but flight school was expensive. To achieve his dream, he worked different jobs. He washed airplanes and cleaned swimming pools. At home, he practiced flying on a video game. In the end, he earned enough money for flight school.

CIRCLING THE WORLD 

At flight school, Irving achieved his dream of learning how to fly. But he wasn’t finished. Next, he planned to build his own plane and fly solo around the world.

Building the plane was difficult. Irving asked more than 50 companies for airplane parts. Most said no, but he kept asking. Three years later, he had parts worth $300,000. Columbia, an airplane company, agreed to build a plane using the parts. Soon, his airplane was ready to fly.

On March 23, 2007, Irving began his round-the-world trip. After 97 days – with 145 hours in the air – he landed back in Miami. A cheering crowd of people was there to welcome him.

SHARING THE DREAM 

Irving saw many young people in the crowd, and this had a powerful effect on him. He wanted to use his experience to help other young people achieve their own dreams. “Everyone told me what I couldn’t do,” says Irving. “They said I was too young, that I didn’t have enough money. [But] even if no one believes in your dream,” he says, “you have to pursue it.”

LIFE IN THE RING 

As a child, Emily Ainsworth loved the colorful world of traveling circuses. As she grew older, she also became interested in other cultures. “England is a small country,” she says. “I saved up for years . . . so that I could afford to travel abroad.”

Ainsworth had many different jobs to pay for her travels. When she was 16, she had earned enough money to travel to Mexico. The experience changed her life. She fell in love with the country and dreamed that perhaps she could return one day.

As a 22-year-old, Ainsworth got her chance. She entered a radio competition to think of an interesting travel idea. The winner would go on the journey and make a documentary. Ainsworth’s idea was to go to Mexico to learn about the lives of circus workers. To her surprise, she won the competition.

Mexico has many circuses. One of the smaller ones is Circo Padilla. Soon after arriving in Mexico, Ainsworth met Padilla’s ringmaster, Don Humberto. He invited her to visit his circus.

On her first day in Circo Padilla, one of the dancers could not take part in the show. Humberto asked Ainsworth if she wanted to be a dancer. Five minutes later, Ainsworth says, she was wearing dancer’s clothes. It was, she says, “like a childhood dream come true.”

As a circus dancer, Ainsworth and the other circus workers performed and lived together. She also studied and took pictures of circus life. The days were quiet, but at night, the circus world came alive.

Ainsworth now has a career as a journalist and photographer. She still has a love for Mexico and returns there when she can. “I still feel like a part of that world,” she says.

Her advice to young people is to follow their childhood dreams. “When you’re eight years old,” she says, “you know that anything is possible.”

A 

In the past, people spent years working for the same company, and they didn’t change jobs very often. It wasn’t unusual to start a job after school or college, and stay there until you retired. These days, however, it’s more difficult to find this reliable kind of work. In fact, a lot of young people regularly have to change their jobs and even their careers.

B 

Because it’s harder to find a safe job, people are thinking of smart new ways to make money. One unusual new job is waiting in lines. Most people aren’t interested in spending time at a government office to get a new driver’s license, or waiting to buy tickets for a music concert. But these days you may not need to wait. A company in New York called SOLD Inc. charges $25 per hour to have somebody wait in line for you. It’s an expensive service, but lots of busy people are willing to pay for a “line-sitter.” SOLD Inc. is very successful, and the man who started the business earns around $1000 a week.

C

One thing is for sure: better machines and new technologies will mean fewer people working in the jobs their parents did. At the same time, we’ll always have to pay bills and support our families. What does this all mean? We can probably expect lots of new, different, and unusual jobs like line-sitting in the future.

A

In the past, people spent years working for the same company, and they didn’t change jobs very often. It wasn’t unusual to start a job after school or college, and stay there until you retired. These days, however, it’s more difficult to find this reliable kind of work. In fact, a lot of young people regularly have to change their jobs and even their careers.

B

Because it’s harder to find a safe job, people are thinking of smart new ways to make money. One unusual new job is waiting in lines. Most people aren’t interested in spending time at a government office to get a new driver’s license, or waiting to buy tickets for a music concert. But these days you may not need to wait. A company in New York called SOLD Inc. charges $25 per hour to have somebody wait in line for you. It’s an expensive service, but lots of busy people are willing to pay for a “line-sitter.” SOLD Inc. is very successful, and the man who started the business earns around $1000 a week.

C

One thing is for sure: better machines and new technologies will mean fewer people working in the jobs their parents did. At the same time, we’ll always have to pay bills and support our families. What does this all mean? We can probably expect lots of new, different, and unusual jobs like line-sitting in the future.

Skim the passage before and answer the questions. 

24. What is the best title for this passage?

25. What is the main idea of paragraph A?

26. Where does the author talk about an interesting new business?

27. Where does the author say why jobs will change in the future?

28. Where does the author give an example of a new kind of job?

Complete the sentences with the correct form of the verbs in the box. There are two extra answers. 

Choose the words that go together with the verbs. There are two correct answers for each. 

33. go ________

34. finish ________

35. learn ________

36. take ________

37. start ________

Find one mistake in each sentence. The kind of mistake is in parentheses. 

Rewrite the sentence and correct the mistakes. Use the example as a guide. 

Example I need get good grades this semester. (missing word) 

                I need to get good grades this semester

Write sentences to answer each question below in your own words. Use the example as a guide. 

1. What place do you hope to visit someday? Why? 

2. What was your childhood dream? 

3. What was the best course you took? Why? 

4. What’s something you need to learn? Why? 

5. What advice do you have for young people? 

Example What place do you hope to visit someday? Why?

 I hope to visit Egypt so I can see the pyramids.

43. Write answers to each question in full sentences. Make sure each sentence has a subject, verb, and punctuation.