G question fo rm a tio n I’m n ot thrilled about answering questions like ‘If you

V figuring out meaning from context were being mugged, and you had a lightsaber in one
P friendly intonation, showing interest pocket and a whip in th e other, which would you use?’
Harrison Ford,

1A Questions and answers

US a cto r

1 READING & SPEA K IN G

Every week the newspaper, The G u ard ian ,
a Look at the photos o f Benedict Cum berbatch chooses people who have been in the news
and Elisabeth M o ss and read their biographical recently and publishes a short interview
info. Have you seen any o f the TV show s or with them called Q&A.
m ovies that they have been in? W hat did you
think o f them?
The actor Benedict Cumberbatch w as b o m in
b Now read the interviews and match questions London in 1976. lie h as starred in m any su ccessfu l TV shows
A - G with their answers. and m ovies, including Sherlock, War Horse, S t a r Trek, and
A IIow do you relax? The Hobbit.
B W hat don’t you like ab ou t your
ap p earan ce? 1 W hat’s one o f your h ap p iest m em ories?
Sitting with the sun on my face the morning after I had been in a
C What’s your earliest m em ory?
carjacking in South Africa.
D W hat m ak es you unhappy?
2 ____________________________________________________
E I f you could edit your p a st, what do you
When I was six, I got stung by a w asp in a G reek m arket.
think you would change? A woman rubbed an onion on my bottom.
F W hat w as your m ost em b arrassin g
3 What don’t you like about your personality?
m om ent?
I’m im patient, but also indecisive.
G Who would you m ost like to say sorry to?
4 What is your gre a te st fear?
c R ead the interview s again u sin g the glossary Forgetting people’s nam es.
to help you. A nsw er the questions with B C 5 _________________________________________________________
(Benedict Cum berbatch) or E M (Elisabeth The size and sh ap e of my head. People say I look like Sid from
M oss). Ice Age.
W h o ...? 6 What costum e would
1 I 1 had an em barrassing experience as a child you w ear to a costum e
party?
2 [ 1 finds it hard to make decisions
I enjoyed wearing
3 I 1 avoids answering one o f the questions
ban dages around my face
4 1 1 had a dangerous experience when they as the Invisible Man at
were traveling abroad the last one I went to.
5 [__1 had a dangerous experience when they People got to know me
were young without recognizing me.
6 I 1 often hesitates when they’re speaking 7 Which w ords or p h rases
was fond o f a kind o f flower when they do you m ost overuse?
were a child I say “ E rm ...” too much.
8 I 1 has a favorite decade 8 W hat one thing would
improve the qu ality of
d W hich o f the questions in the interview s do
your life?
you think is...?
Better tim e m anagem ent.
• the m ost interesting
• the m ost boring I might not have called
• too personal to ask a person who you don’t Trevor Nunn, the famous
know well director, “Adrian” at my
first audition for him.
e C h o o se six questions from Q& A to ask your
partner.

4
 2 G R A M M A R question formation
a N ow read the questions in l b again and answ er
the questions below w ith a partner.
1 Which questions are examples o f...?
• a subject question, where there is no auxiliary
verb
• a question that ends with a preposition
• a question that uses a negative auxiliary verb
2 What happens to the word order in the question
What would you change? when you add do you
think after what?
b > - p .132 G ram m ar Bank 1A. Learn m ore about
question form ation, and practice it.

The ac tre ssElisabeth Moss was born in C aliforn ia in
1982. She h a s been in several very su ccessfu l US TV dram as,
including The West Wing and M ad Men, for which she won an
Em m y award.
1 _________________________________________________
G oing out into the backyard of my home in LA and
pretending to build a vegetable garden with stick s and
rocks. I m ust have been five.
2 Which living person do you most admire?
T his is kind of cheesy, bu t my mom.
3 Which living person do you m ost d e sp ise, and why?
I won’t say his name.
4 ______________________________________________________
Not getting enough sleep.
5 W hat is your favorite sm ell?
Jasm in e. I grew up in L o s A ngeles, in the hills, and there
w as alw ays jasm in e growing.
6 _________________________________________________
To a really good girlfriend who I lost touch with when I was
little. I would love to see her again.
7 If you could go b ack in tim e, where would you go?
To a 1930s jazz club in New York City. I love the art deco
period - the jewelry, the clothes, the music.
3 P R O N U N C IA TIO N
friendly intonation, showing interest
a 1 4))) Listen to som e people asking questions
1-5. W ho sou n ds friendlier and m ore interested
each time, a or b?
1 Do you h a v Q ja b i g f a m i ly ?
2 W h a t d o n ’t you lik q ^ b o u t the p la c e
where you liv e ?
3 W h a t s p o r t $ J 3 r g a m e $ j3 r e you
g o o c jja t ?
4 do you t h i n k you h a v q ja h e a l t h y d ie t ?
5 W h a t m a k e s you f e e l h a p p y ?
b 15))) Listen and repeat the questions with
friendly intonation. Focus on sentence stress and
linking.
O Reacting to what someone says
When you ask someone a question and they
answer, it is normal to show interest by saying,
e.g., Really? or How interesting! w ith a friendly
intonation or by asking a question.
c 16))) N ow listen to the questions in a
conversation. Com plete the expression s or
questions that the m an or w om an use to react to
the answ ers.

8 _______________________________________________________________ 1 Wow ! T hat’s a huge family.

I am a big fan of getting a box set and watching the entire 2 ________ ? W hat’s wrong with them?
show in two or three weeks. I’m watching The So pran os at the 3 ________! We could play a game one day.
moment, because I m issed it when it first cam e out. 4 ________ ! How long have you been a vegan?
9 W hat h as been your m ost Glossary 5 ________ ? I can't think o f anything worse!
frightening experience? carjacking the crime o f forcing the
W hen I w as little, 1 was driver of a car to take you somewhere d 17))) Listen and repeat the responses. C o p y the
or give you their car intonation.
on a lake in the US and Emmy an award similar to the
got caught underneath Oscars, but for TV
cheesy informal too emotional e A sk and answ er the questions with a partner.
a rowing boat. T hat was
or romantic in a way that is U se friendly intonation, and react to your
pretty scary. embarrassing, e.g., a cheesy love song
partn er’s answ ers.
Online Practice 1A
Adapted from The Guardian
 4 READING & VO C A B U LA R Y
a Look at the photo w ith the article. W hat do
you think is h appening? D o you think the
question is one that som eone m ight really
ask in this situation? W hy (not)?
b R ead the article once and find out. How
w ould yon answ er the question?
P Guessing the meaning of new words and phrases
When you are reading and find a word or phrase you don’t know:
1 Try to guess the meaning from the context (e.g., the other words
around it). Think also about what part o f speech th e unknown word
is (e.g., a verb, an adjective, etc.), whether it is similar to another
English word you know, or whether it is similar to a word in your
language.
2 If you s till can’t figure out what the word or phrase means, either
ignore it and continue reading or use a dictionary (or glossary if
there is one) to help you.

HOME / NEWS / US NEWS / SOCIETY

E x t r e m e in te r v ie w s
WHAT kind of dinosaur are you? If you answered Tyrannosaurus rex, then the bad news is that
you probably won’t get the job you’re applying for.

Comment Print

! Welcome to the strange world of extreme

interviewing, the latest trend in which
interviewers throw bizarre questions at
candidates to see how they react. So, what kind of
dinosaur would
s It may seem like a game, but extreme you be?
interviewing is deadly serious. The idea is
to see how quickly job seekers think on their
feet and, at a time when 25 percent o f recent
graduates are unemployed, it offers employers
A Tyrannosaurus rex\
io a new way of separating the brilliant
candidates from the merely very good.
This new approach to selecting candidates
comes from Silicon Valley in California —
where else? Google, famous for its demanding
is interview process, asked a recent candidate:
“You are stranded on a desert island. You have
60 seconds to choose people o f 10 professions
to come with you. Who do you choose? Go"”
One o f the early pioneers of extreme interviewing was Steve Jobs, cofounder o f Apple, who could be Glossary
20 famously cruel with job seekers. Faced once with a candidate he considered boring, Jo b s suddenly Silicon Valley the
pretended to be a chicken, flapping his arms and making clucking noises around the unfortunate applicant, informal name for the
region in northern
waiting to see what he would do. In fact, the secret to extreme interviewing is neither in the question nor California where many
the answer. It is in the candidate’s reaction. o f the world’s largest
technology corporations
David Moyle, a headhunter with the recruitment agency Eximius Group, who admits to using the dinosaur are based
25 question when selecting candidates, said: “ Essentially, that kind of interviewing is used by us to give headhunter a person
someone an opportunity to show they are smart and not easily flustered.” whose job it is to
find people with the
“Most candidates actually get something out o f it, it’s not about trying to crush them. We are trying to give necessary skills to work
for a company and to
them an opportunity to show their personality, rather than just showing how they perform in an interview.” persuade them to join
that company
O f course, getting the job is just the start. In the modern business world, survival will depend on what kind
30 o f dinosaur you realiv are.

6 1A Adapted from The Sunday Times

c R ead the article again carefully. With 5 LIS TEN IN G
a partner, try to figure out w hat the
highlighted w ords and p h rases m ight m ean
and how you think they are pronounced.

d Now match the w ords and phrases with 1-10.

1 ________ adj needing a lot o f effort and

skill
2 ________ adj nervous and confused,
especially because you have been given a
lot to do or are in a hurry
3 ________ adj very strange or unusual
4 ________ ITO1 to be able to think and
react to things very quickly without any
preparation a Have you ever been to a job interview? W hat kind o f questions did
5 ________ noun a way o f doing or they ask you? D id you get the job?
thinking about something
6 ________ phrase instead of b 1 9 ))) Listen to five people talkin g about a stran ge question they

7 ________ verb to destroy som ebody’s were asked in job interview s. Com plete the questions in the first
confidence colum n.
8 ________ noun a specialist company
What strange question How did they answer? What happened in
that finds and interviews candidates to
were they asked? the end?
fill job vacancies in other companies
1 Do you still
9 ________ noun people who are looking ?
for a job
10 ________ verb moving something 2 What would make you
quickly up and down, e.g., wings a ?

e 18))) Listen and check. Underline the

3 are
stressed syllables.
you? How much
vou ?
f U sing your ow n w ords, answ er the
questions with a partner. 4 would
you like to be
1 What are extreme interviews? reincarnated as?
2 What kind o f companies first started using 5 Are you planning
them? to ?
3 Why do some people think that they are
better than norm al interviews?
c L isten again and take notes in the rest o f the chart.
g D o you think extrem e interview s are a good
way o f ch oosing candidates? W hich o f the d W hich o f the questions did you think were good o r bad to ask at
questions below (used in real interviews) do an interview?
you think would work well? Why?

Room, 6 SPEA K IN G
On a scale of desk, or c a r-
1-10, how weird which do you a > - Com m unication Extrem e interviews A p.104 B p.110. A sk your
Which TV
are you? dean first? partner extrem e interview questions.
character are
you m ost like?
b W rite three extrem e interview questions o f your own that you
Can you think m ight tell you som ething interesting about another person.
Does life name three
fascinate Lady Gaga c A sk your questions to as m any other students a s possible and
If you were a
you? songs? answ er theirs.
car, w hat car
would you be? d W hich questions did you think were the m ost interesting? Why?

Online Practice 1A