IGCSE English As A Second Language 0510 - 23 Paper 2 Reading and Writing (Extended) May - Jun 2021
IGCSE English As A Second Language 0510 - 23 Paper 2 Reading and Writing (Extended) May - Jun 2021
IGCSE English As A Second Language 0510 - 23 Paper 2 Reading and Writing (Extended) May - Jun 2021
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2
Exercise 1
Read the article about a young skateboarder, and then answer the following questions.
Her love of skateboarding grew, and by 2014 she held three competition titles for her age group.
In 2016, she became the youngest competitor in the national Open Series, and discovered what
it’s like to compete against women with much more skateboarding experience. She realised that to
get to their level, she needed to invest in quality equipment. At the competition, a coach suggested
she try to get into the British skateboarding team. Shelly’s dad is from Britain, where they all live,
but her mum’s from Japan, and Shelly realised she had a choice about which country to represent.
First, she considered the Japanese team, especially as her family were planning a trip to Japan at
the time. But in the end, she decided that going for the team where she was based would be more
logical.
Since then, Shelly has competed as part of her national team all over the world, most recently in
Spain. She loves staying in different hotels, although this can be expensive for her parents. They
were pleased on this occasion, therefore, to find out that a friend’s house was available, which
helped. The team did pretty well in Spain, and after the competition, Shelly uploaded some video
clips of the event to her blog, as she usually does. There were also cameras filming other teams
for a sports programme, and she found that the opportunity to watch other competitors helped her
make progress.
Shelly knows that if you want to be good at skateboarding, you have to practise every day, and even
when she’s not training, she’s naturally competitive. When she goes swimming, which many people
find relaxing, she can’t help trying to go faster than everyone else in the pool! So when she wants to
chill out, she spends time baking instead, which helps her slow down and concentrate on something
other than sport. She’s recently taken up photography too, and this is something that she finds is a
break from the high-energy world of competition.
As she started to become more well known, she began to give interviews, which are regularly
published. In fact, she advises fans to read skateboarding magazines to get useful tips. Last month,
she did an interview for a national newspaper. They wanted to know whether she was planning to
go to university after school, or focus on her sport, something she says she’s not made her mind up
about yet. One thing she’s determined to do is travel the world. She was pleased with the interview,
but not with the fact that they got the name of her skateboard wrong. The photograph they took to go
with it was much bigger than she had expected, and while it was a shock to see her image taking up
nearly the whole page, she secretly loved it.
1 How old was Shelly when she entered her first competition?
.................................................................................................................................................... [1]
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.................................................................................................................................................... [1]
4 Where did Shelly and her parents stay when she competed in Spain?
.................................................................................................................................................... [1]
.................................................................................................................................................... [1]
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.................................................................................................................................................... [2]
.................................................................................................................................................... [1]
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9 What guidance about improving skateboarding skills is given in the article? Give four details.
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.................................................................................................................................................... [4]
[Total: 13]
Exercise 2
Read the reviews from four people (A–D) who have written about different TV series.
Then answer Question 10(a)–(j).
TV reviews
Which person …
(a) thinks that the humour is unsuitable for some age groups? ……… [1]
(b) explains how the relationship between the main characters changes? ……… [1]
(c) finds the programme funny right from the start? ……… [1]
(d) suggests that the first series of the show made people want to watch the next one? ……… [1]
(e) mentions that the show has helped them solve problems in their own life? ……… [1]
(f) thinks that the music makes the show even better? ……… [1]
(g) notes that there are well-known actors in the series? ……… [1]
(h) mentions being surprised by the way the characters react to each other? ……… [1]
(i) explains how the characters manage to achieve results? ……… [1]
(j) says that the show is based on a popular set of stories? ……… [1]
[Total: 10]
Exercise 3
Read the article about studying penguins, and then complete the notes.
Scientists face various issues when studying any animal in the wild. Observing penguins can be
particularly challenging as, to humans, all penguins look the same. One solution scientists have used
to overcome this has been to tag the birds, and for a long time, coloured identification bands were
attached to the penguins’ legs or flippers. This was not ideal, however, as the plastic tags were found
to sometimes harm the birds. Scientists therefore started using a hand-held piece of equipment that
can collect information about a penguin from a special digital microchip (similar to those used on
pets) that needs to be placed under the penguin’s skin. Although the microchip has the advantage
of being undetected by the bird, in order to collect the data scientists have to approach the penguin.
Not surprisingly, when they see a human coming towards them the adult penguins move away. It
has also been noted that the presence of humans can make the adult birds fight with each other. All
of these issues contribute to making data collection from the microchip less than straightforward.
So as an alternative, it is hoped that a newly designed robot may be able to offer scientists a better
way of learning about these fascinating creatures. The small-wheeled robot, which is fitted with
a camera, is controlled from a distance. The robot is made to resemble a penguin chick and is
able to reach the middle of the colony unnoticed, so the penguins continue to behave completely
naturally. In the past, information gathered by scientists about penguins’ daily lives has sometimes
been unreliable, but as the robot does not appear to disturb the birds, researchers are able to gain
more accurate data about the penguins.
Of course, as is generally the case with most modern technology, the robots can be used with different
types of sensors as well as cameras, which widens the range of data available to researchers. So
far, the robot has been used in the study of two species of penguins – the king penguin and the
emperor penguin. An experiment with the latter proved particularly valuable as scientists were able
to prove that a visit by the robot causes a far smaller rise in heart rate than a visit from a scientist.
There is certainly a lot of potential in the robot. It could be used to monitor many other species,
including animals like elephant seals, which can be very dangerous to humans. Scientists are also
investigating the possibility of using it in marine and other environments.
You are going to give a talk to your class at school about studying penguins.
• ...............................................................................................................................................
• ...............................................................................................................................................
• ...............................................................................................................................................
• ......................................................................................................................................... [4]
• ...............................................................................................................................................
• ...............................................................................................................................................
• ...............................................................................................................................................
• ...............................................................................................................................................
• ......................................................................................................................................... [5]
[Total: 9]