READING 1 A2

Five things to do in
Hanoi, Vietnam
Hanoi is the capital city of Vietnam
in South-East Asia. There are lots of
interesting places to eat and things to see.

A This lake is in the centre of town and has trees all around it. There is a beautiful D This is a day trip by coach or taxi to see the beautiful World
old bridge over the lake, which takes you to a pretty building that is a great place Heritage site. There are over a thousand small islands in the
to take photographs! There is another beautiful building at the other end of the sea. You can take a trip on a boat and have a fish lunch with
lake where, if you are lucky, you might see one of the very old turtles swimming. local people who live on boats that float in the sea. You can even
This building is called the Turtle Tower but you can’t go there because it’s built on visit some of the islands. This wonderful place has been used
an island. in many films, such as Indochine with Catherine Deneuve
and was also the setting for a Top Gear Special, a BBC TV
B Nearly every street has street cafés with very small tables and chairs selling
programme in which three men drove over a thousand miles on
delicious Pho, which is a type of soup, and Bun Cha, which is made of grilled meat.
motorbikes from Ho Chi Minh City to Ha Long Bay.
The best advice is to choose a place that is very busy with local people and ask how
much the food is before you order it. The food is very cheap and tasty. E In the centre of Hanoi you can visit some of the old streets
and shops. The streets still have the names of the professions
C Not far from the centre of Hanoi is the place where the first university in
that worked there, for example, Leather Road, Medicine
Vietnam was built nearly a thousand years ago. You can see the academy
Street and Fish Street. You can have a really interesting
buildings where students studied and relaxed many years ago. People who studied
morning walking around these streets, see craftspeople
here had very difficult exams and the head of the country, who was like a king,
making shoes and fixing bicycles, then stop for a special
asked the exam questions himself. Even today some university students come
Vietnamese coffee with sweet milk.
here to have their photos taken when they finish their university exams.

1 Read the article quickly and match
the headings (1–5) to the paragraphs
(A–E).
1 Visit the Imperial Academy
2 Try street food
3 Visit the Old Quarter
4 Take a trip to Ha Long Bay
5 Visit Hoan Kiem Lake
2 Read the article again. Which paragraph (A–E) talks about:
1 visiting a place where people have sold things for years
2 seeing an old animal and a bridge
3 seeing where people studied hundreds of years ago
4 taking a photo of a pretty place that has been on TV and in film
5 seeing people who have finished university
6 eating with people who live on boats
7 having a coffee after a walk
8 having some traditional soup

3 Are these sentences true or false?

1 You can cross a bridge to get to the Turtle Tower. TRUE/FALSE
2 You should ask the price of street food before you buy it. TRUE/FALSE
3 The exams in the Imperial Academy were easy. TRUE/FALSE
4 You can walk to Ha Long Bay from Hanoi. TRUE/FALSE
5 Some craftspeople still make things in the Old Quarter. TRUE/FALSE

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 READING 2 A2

A D E
B
C

cassette player
iPod mp3 player
record player Walkman (with headphones) smartphone

Nowadays, we can download music onto our smartphones and listen to it when and where we want.
But it hasn’t always been this easy to listen to music as you move around.
• In 1962 Henry Kloss invented the first ‘portable’ music system. ‘Portable’ things are usually easy to carry
but this record player was so big that it had its own suitcase!
• The first portable cassette player in 1965 was big and it weighed 1.5 kilograms with five heavy batteries
inside. Modern smartphones weigh about 0.13 kilograms!
• In 1978 the Sony Walkman cassette player allowed people to carry music with them and listen on
headphones for the first time, but it was still too big to put in your pocket and it weighed 1.1kg. From
1984, there were also portable CD players with better sound, but they used a lot of battery power and
you couldn’t move too quickly with them because the CD would skip or stop.
• The first mp3 players (most famously the iPod in 2001), changed portable music forever. Hundreds of
songs could now be transferred from computers and put on one small device.
Can you remember any of the earlier players? Did you have a portable cassette player?

1 Read the blog quickly and match the year to the music player.
Laura: Nice post Musicman! I had a
portable cassette player for a surprise
birthday present in the 1980s. It was
amazing and had a radio too. The best
thing about it was that you could connect
two sets of headphones – so you could
listen with your friend. I’d like that on my
smartphone today! :-)
Maria: My mum has a portable record
player. Sometimes we get out all her old
records and listen to them. Some records
are really big and they only have one
song on each side!
1965 1962 2001 1978
1 record player 3 Walkman
2 cassette player 4 iPod
2 Read the blog again and choose the correct answers.
1 How did people carry the first portable music system?
A in their pocket B in a suitcase C in their handbag
2 How heavy was the 1965 cassette recorder?
A 0.13kg B 1.1kg C 1.5kg
3 What was better about the 1984 portable CD player?
A the size B the battery life C the sound quality
4 Which mp3 player does Musicman say was the most famous?

Paulo: I love your blog and read it every
week. That is so funny…a portable music
player that weighs over a kilogram! My
phone has thousands of songs on it
but my mum and dad still only listen to
the radio. They don’t have any portable
music!
A iPod B iPad C iPhone
3 Read the comments under the blog. Are these sentences true or false?
1 Laura bought her cassette player in the 1980s. TRUE/FALSE
2 Laura’s smartphone has holes for two sets of headphones. TRUE/FALSE
3 Maria and her mum sometimes listen to records. TRUE/FALSE
4 Paulo buys music from Musicman every week. TRUE/FALSE
5 Paulo’s parents prefer listening to the radio. TRUE/FALSE

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