Look at the spaces marked 1-4 in the text and decide where the following sentence fits best in the passage. Until recently, broadcasting had seemed stuffy, worthy and dull; heavily unionised, grey and bureaucratic; full of bearded do-gooders and old dears pushing tea-trolleys; a sort of showbiz branch of the Civil Service.
TASK 4. (0–7)
Read two texts about television. For questions 4.1.–4.7., choose the answer that best
matches the text and circle the appropriate letter (A, B, C or D).
Text 1
TV TALES
The parched yellow grass of Primrose Hill was crowded with young professionals, many
straight from their offices, talking and laughing, and Dexter lay in the centre of it all thinking
about television. The idea of a career in photography had been abandoned without much of
a fight. He knew he was a decent amateur, but to become exceptional would require toil,
rejection and struggle, and he wasn’t sure struggle suited him. [1] Television, on the other
hand, wanted him right now. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? When he was growing up,
there had always been a television in his home, but there was something a little unwholesome
about watching the thing. Now, it had suddenly come to dominate his life, and with the passion
of a new recruit he found himself getting quite emotional about the medium, as if he had finally
found a spiritual home.
His rise through this world had been meteoric. A woman he had met on a train in India had
given him his first job as a runner, then a researcher, and now he was Assistant Producer on
a weekend magazine programme that mixed live music with brash reports on the things that
really stirred adolescent minds: music, freedom and a feeling of insecurity about the future. [2]
The hyperactive clips Dexter produced were shot from crazy angles through fish-eye lenses,
with the clouds sped up in sync with an acid house soundtrack. There was even talk of putting
him in front of the cameras in the next series. He was flying and there seemed to be every
possibility that he would make his parents proud.
Although it didn’t have the arty gleam of photography, TV was the future. It always touched
people’s lives in the most immediate way, shaped opinions, provoked and entertained more
effectively than all those books no-one read and plays no-one went to see. Emma could say
what she liked about the Tories (Dexter was no fan either) but they had certainly shaken
up the media. [3] By contrast, Redlight Productions, where he worked, was part of the boom
in new, youthful, privately owned independent companies wresting the means of production
away from the fusty dinosaurs. There was money in the media; the fact sang out from
the primary-coloured open-plan offices with their state-of-the-art computer systems and
generously stocked communal fridges.
“I work in TV”; just saying it gave him satisfaction. He liked striding down Berwick Street to
an edit-suite with a jiffy bag of videotapes, nodding at people just like him. He liked
the sushi platters and the launch parties, ordering couriers and saying things like “we’ve got to
lose six seconds”. [4] However, above anything else, he liked the fact that it was one of
the better-looking industries, in which youth was valued. No chance, in this brave new world
of TV, of walking into a conference room to find a group of sixty-two-year-olds brainstorming.
So what happened to TV people when they reached a certain age? Never mind, it suited him,
as did the preponderance of young women like Naomi: hard, ambitious and metropolitan.
In rare moments of self-doubt, he had once worried that a lack of intellect might hold him back
in life, but here was a job where confidence, energy, perhaps even a certain arrogance were
what mattered, all qualities that lay within his grasp. Yes, you had to be smart, but not
Emma-smart. Just politic, shrewd and ambitious. He wanted to share all this excitement with
Emma, introduce her to new possibilities, new social circles; to make her life more like his own.
adapted from One Day by David Nicholls
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4.1. Look at the spaces marked 1-4 in the text and decide where the following sentence
fits best in the passage.
Until recently, broadcasting had seemed stuffy, worthy and dull; heavily unionised, grey
and bureaucratic; full of bearded do-gooders and old dears pushing tea-trolleys; a sort
of showbiz branch of the Civil Service.
A. In the space marked [1].
B. In the space marked [2].
C. In the space marked [3].
D. In the space marked [4].
4.2. The weekend magazine programme for which Dexter worked
A. provoked a heated debate among viewers.
B. was regarded as too high-brow.
C. had made Dexter the pride and joy of his parents.
D. addressed topics that mattered to young people.
4.3. Which of the following aspects of television is mentioned as appealing to Dexter?
A. It had the power to influence political events.
B. It was dominated by people with strongly held convictions.
C. It was an environment in which young people could thrive.
D. It gave an opportunity to rub shoulders with the rich and famous.
4.4. It is implied in the final paragraph that Dexter
A. sensed that he had what it took to succeed in the world of television.
B. behaved tentatively in an environment dominated by women.
C. realized he was outgrowing his relationship with Emma.
D. felt envious of Naomi’s promising career.
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Text 2
WILL THE BBC’S STARRY ADAPTATION OF SHAKESPEARE SUCCEED?
Most Shakespeare productions on television have been either camera-captures of a previous
theatre success or were filmed in a studio that looked like a stage. Sir Anthony Hopkins’
portrayal of King Lear, though, is, in every sense, different. The play, if performed in full, runs
for at least four hours, but director Richard Eyre brings it in at 115 minutes, which is the usual
span of a TV movie thriller, a genre also echoed through the setting of a dystopian
contemporary London under Lear’s military dictatorship. This length and look are central to
what the production is aiming for – mass audiences. Most previous TV Shakespeare has been
targeted towards viewers who happened not to be at the National Theatre or the Royal
Shakespeare Company on that night. However, with the latest version of King Lear, the BBC
and co-producer Amazon, in whose online vaults the show will have a long afterlife beyond its
forthcoming BBC Two premiere, hope that much wider audiences will give it a go: those who
have watched Hopkins in Westworld, admired Jim Carter as the butler in the popular drama
series Downton Abbey, or applauded Andrew Scott for his Moriarty in Sherlock.
In style, as well as cast, this production of King Lear fits TV’s flow. The pivotal scene in which
Lear loses his mind, usually located on a heath, here takes place in a bleak concrete shopping
centre that was modernist long ago, with Hopkins, like a street-sleeper, wheeling
a supermarket trolley through the winos and school truants.
Another hero of the show is the delete key on the director’s laptop. Swathes of pages are
excised, especially in the sub-plots of the middle acts, with the sequencing also tweaked, so
that the second scene of the fourth act now comes after the sixth, which is joined to the first.
Counter-intuitively, but effectively, Eyre often ignores Shakespeare’s use of cross-cut short
scenes, prophetic of cinema, to create longer sections in one setting.
The main highlight of the project is the return to the classical canon of Hopkins, a great
Shakespearean actor for many years feared to be permanently lost to Hollywood, who proves
that he still has the vocal dexterity and psychological intuition needed for the repertoire’s peaks.
As has become common with modern Lears, Hopkins gives a clinically precise depiction of the
onset of dementia, with which we now diagnose the king. But the key to his wrenchingly
affecting performance is a bold verbal bi-polarity: much must have been done in the sound
balance to reconcile the flaming rage of the curse against his daughter, Cordelia, with the
whispery softness of the reconciliation. With his performance Hopkins has set a new
benchmark for Shakespeare, to which others can only aspire, and he could not have done
more to make this tragedy, which is more than 400 years old, thrive in the box-set and
streaming culture.
adapted from www.theguardian.com
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4.5. We learn from the first paragraph that the BBC adaptation of King Lear
A. features actors who have already appeared in other TV productions of King Lear.
B. will be made available online simultaneously with the TV premiere.
C. is likely to dishearten enthusiasts of BBC productions.
D. caters to the demands of television as a medium.
4.6. The author uses the phrase “Another hero of the show is the delete key on
the director’s laptop”
A. to call into question the computer-generated effects the director has introduced.
B. to draw attention to the director’s extensive abridgement of the original play.
C. to express his scepticism about the director’s editing skills.
D. to highlight the director’s reliance on modern technology.
4.7. In the last paragraph, the author claims that
A. Hopkins’ Hollywood career undermined his credibility as a Shakespearean actor.
B. Hopkins is expected to give way to new-generation Shakespearean actors.
C. Hopkins fails to give a convincing portrayal of King Lear’s bi-polarity.
D. Hopkins’ performance as the central character is unrivalled.
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