Unit 6 Taking risks

• Reading
  
• Vocabulary
  
• Grammar
  
• Writing

Reading

Skim reading

Write down what you think each of these sports involves.

a BASE jumping     - a parachute jump from a building

b bungee jumping     - jumping off a very high bridge with a long elastic rope tied to your legs, so that the rope pulls you back before you hit the surface

c free-climbing     - climbing up a rock face without the ropes

d off-piste in-lining     - rollerblading down a mountain

e sky-surfing     - a type of skydiving in which the skydiver wears a board attached to his or her feet and performs surfing-style aerobatics

Read the article quickly and check your answers.

Matching people to statements

In the exam, you may have to match statements to people. Use these points to help you:

1 Quickly read the article and underline the names of the people.

2 Read the statements carefully. Don't try to find the same words in the text.

3 Match the statement to the person. The statement should accurately paraphrase the text.

2 Matching people to statements

Statements 1-6 are from the article. Match them with the people a-d who make them.

Which of the people say:

2 their sport makes them feel very calm?

3 their sport is not risky?

4 not every extreme sport is life-endangering? (two people)

5 most fans don't do extreme sports?

6 some extreme sports are quite stupid?

a Mike Frost     c The writer

b Mehgan Heaney-Grier     d Steve Edmonds

1 they were worried during an extreme event? - Steve Edmonds

2 their sport makes them feel very calm? - Mehgan Heaney-Grier

3 their sport is not risky? - Mike Frost

4 not every extreme sport is life-endangering? - Mike Frost, Steve Edmonds (two people)

5 most fans don't do extreme sports? - The writer

6 some extreme sports are quite stupid? - Steve Edmonds

GENERATION
EXTREME

At this year's X-Games, the Olympics of dangerous and daring 'sport', the sky-surfer Mike Frost will jump out of a plane above Mariner's Point, San Diego with a surf-board attached to his feet. At first he will start 'free-flying', a head-first dive through the sky, watching the Pacific Ocean below him as he reaches a speed of 288 kph. Then he will begin to spin at an amazing five revolutions per second, travelling sideways at a speed of 80 to 96 kph.

Nearer sea level, or rather a long way below it, Mehgan is Heaney-Grier goes 'free-diving' with no oxygen tanks. A 19-year-old, part-time model, Mehgan can hold her breath for up to two minutes and swim to depths of 50 metres. 'It's a very relaxing thing to do,' she says. 'When you're that deep underwater, you feel compressed all over. But it's absolutely beautiful and very peaceful.' Mehgan and Mike are just two of the many people who choose to spend their free time risking their lives.

The extreme sports craze started ten years ago. Since then most risk addicts have completed either a bungee jump or a parachute jump, and are now turning to new, more dangerous and at times truly silly sports. The list of life-endangering activities gets longer every week. Nowadays you can take up 'BASE jumping' (a jump from the top of a building), 'free-climbing' (climbing up a rock face without the ropes) or go 'off-piste in-lining' (rollerblading down a mountain). And everybody is doing it, or at least everybody is watching it. Millions of people around the world spectate as alternative sportspeople perform. For every brave participant, there are tens of thousands of viewers, oohing and aahing in their living rooms.

But just how extreme is extreme? According to Mike Frost, sky-surfing isn't as alarming as it seems. 'It's nice to have people think it's dangerous,' he admits, 'but really it's a very safe sport.' So what does 'extreme' mean? 'There's a lot of misuse of the word.' says Steve Edmonds, director of the extreme sports series High Five. 'People use it to describe something which looks risky but is often fairly safe. Snowboarding isn't extreme and neither is bungee jumping, but I've seen someone jump off buildings in San Diego and had to pray he was going to survive. Now that's extreme.'

3 Definitions

Explain in your own words what these people do.

2 risk addicts     people who cannot stop playing risky sports once they have started

3 brave participant     a daring sportsmen who takes part in dangerous activities

4 director     a person who is in charge of a film or a series of films and tells the actors how to play their parts

4 Adjectives

Match these adjectives with their meanings a-f.