Penguin Readers Answer Key
Stealing the Hills
Answers to book activities
1 a lorry
b coal mine
c poster
d meeting
e brick
2 a business bribe
b owns
c protest
d ruin
e dug
f Open answers
3 Open answers
4 a Susan’s mum
b Susan
c Mr Beech
5 a in the big room next to the church
b on Mr Beech’s hill
c Susan’s house
d in the Country Park
6-8 Open answers
9 Go to the police.
10 He thinks Mr Beech is right.
11 Because a policeman came to the house
and told him.
12 His wife is a doctor at the hospital.
13 She lived in a village in the north and Mr
Beech did the same things there.
14 His friend is a television detective.
15 Across the road, opposite the supermarket,
outside the bread shop.
16 At the Country Park and the new mine.
17 The changes in the village and the day Mr
Beech tried to bribe them.
18 Mr Beech closes the door to them.
19 His garden and the vegetables he grows
there.
20 The villagers stop shopping at the
supermarket and the men stop working at
the mine. They sit in the road to the mine
and stop Mr Beech’s new men. Mr Beech
loses a lot of money.
21-22 Open answers
Answers to Factsheet activities
■ Communicative activities
Open answers except:
Activities after reading the book
1 Susan: When we meet Susan at the
beginning of the story, she is the same as
other girls. However, Susan is clever. She
quickly sees that there could be a problem
with Mr Beech - only Mr George sees this.
She changes and starts to fight Mr Beech.
She puts up posters and shows that she is
not afraid of him. She becomes very strong.
When Mr Beech’s dog hurts her she
becomes angrier, not more afraid. Susan
gets stronger.
Susan’s father: For Susan’s father, the most
important thing is work. So he doesn’t want
to know that Mr Beech is hurting the village.
But he changes just before the end of the
story. He sees how his vegetables are black
from the smoke. Then he says he will talk to
David North about Mr Beech. He changes
and stops being afraid of Mr Beech. He gets
stronger too.
© Pearson Education 2000
Mr Beech: At first we think that Mr Beech is a
nice, kind man. He buys a lot of things in the
village. When he buys the mine and the
supermarket we think he wants to help the
village. Then we see that he does not pay
the miners well. He has men with dogs and
those dogs hurt children in the village. He
wants to make Susan and her family afraid.
He buys people with money. Somebody
throws a brick through a window in Susan’s
house - we know that Mr Beech paid
somebody to do this. Mr Beech gets worse
and worse.
■ Student’s activities
Activities before reading the book
1 (i) coal mine, (ii) jobs, (iii) Beech, (iv) mine,
(v) plans, (vi) like, (vii) jobs/work,
(viii) happening, (ix) smoke, (x) hills,
(xi) ruin, (xii) steal
2 Open answers
Activities while reading the book
Chapters 1 & 2
1 (a) they close the coal mine.
(b) people don’t have much money.
(c) people think he’s too old.
(d) they can find work there.
(e) Susan’s father has no work so they don’t
have much money.
(f) it is very beautiful there.
(g) there is a hill in the park.
(h) he buys a lot of things in the village.
(i) he is going to buy the old mine.
(j) he wants to tell everybody about his
plans for the village.
(k) she wants to know about Mr Beech’s
plans.
2 Open answers
Chapters 3-5
1 (a) Right
(b) Wrong. Most people aren’t interested in
his plans.
(c) Wrong. He wants to look for more coal
there.
(d) Wrong. He thinks it will ruin the park and
the hill.
(e) Right
(f) Right
(g) Wrong. He pays his workers badly.
(h) Right
(i) Wrong. Susan and Julie put posters up.
(j) Right
(k) Wrong. Mr Beech has dogs.
(l) Right
2 Open answers
Chapters 6-8
1 (a) A job in his new shop. He also says he
will give Susan and Julie five thousand
pounds to stop the posters and protests.
(b) She says,‘We want you to get out of our
village. We don’t want your money!’
(c) Somebody throws a brick through a
closed window in their house.
There is paper on the brick with writing
on it: ‘Get out of the village now! You are
in danger!’Then Mr Beech says he
doesn’t want Susan’s father to work at
the mine. Then one of his dogs hurts
Susan.
level
ELEMENTARY 2
(d) They happen because Mr Beech wants
to make Susan afraid of him. Then she
and Julie will stop their posters and
protest meetings.
(e) They say they will go to the police. They
want to tell the police about Mr Beech’s
dog. They also want to go to hospital.
They want a doctor to look at Susan’s
leg.
2 Open answers
Chapters 9 & 10
1 (a) The doctor says this to Susan and Julie.
(b) The doctor says this to Susan and Julie.
(c) Mr Beech says this to Susan and Julie.
(d) The policeman says this to Susan and
Julie.
(e) Susan says this to Julie.
(f) Susan’s mother says this to Susan.
(g) Susan’s father says this to Susan.
(h) David North says this in a letter to Susan.
(i) Susan says this to David North.
(j) David North says this to Susan.
2 Open answers
3 Open answers
Chapters 11-13
1 (a) Mary North, (b) Mr Beech,
(c) John Morton, (d) Susan and Julie,
(e) John Morton, (f) Susan and Julie
2 Open answers
3 Open answers
Chapters 14-16
1 (a)(ii), (b)(ii), (c)(ii), (d)(ii), (e)(i), (f)(i)
2 (a) Susan’s father says that he made a
mistake about Mr Beech. He thought Mr
Beech was all right. But now he knows
that Mr Beech is not a good man. Mr
Beech is not interested in the village,
only in money.
(b) A new factory opens in the village and
Susan and Julie work there.
Susan’s father works in a new shopping
centre in the village. There is no black
smoke over the village and babies and
children are well again. There are no big
lorries so the village streets are quiet
again. The river is clean and the Country
Park is green and beautiful again.
3 Open answers
Activities after reading the book
Example answer:
Susan is different because she is a very strong
girl. She is not afraid of people. She is happy to
fight when she thinks she has to. She is also a
good person. She is fighting not only for her
family but for the village and the Country Park.
She is clever. When she hears about Mr Beech
for the first time, she thinks that perhaps there
will be problems. Then she finds out that there
are problems and she does something about it.
She doesn’t just think - she talks and does
things. Also she talks to people about the
problem. She is good at doing things. When
Susan is older she could do very well in life.