FCE Reading and Use of English Part 6: Gapped Text
You are going to read a newspaper article in which a former ballet dancer talks about the physical demands of the job. Six sentences have been removed from the article on the left. Choose the most suitable sentence from the list A-G on the right for each part (1-6) of the article. There is one extra sentence which you do not need to use.
Sentences
A. Through endless tries at the usual exercises and frequent failures, ballet dancers develop the natural pathways in the brain necessary to control accurate, fast and smooth movement.
B. The ballet shoe offers some support, but the real strength is in the muscles, built up through training.
C. As technology takes away activity from the lives of many, perhaps the ballet dancer's physicality is ever more difficult for most people to imagine.
D. Ballet technique is certainly extreme but it is not, in itself, dangerous.
E. The principle is identical in the gym - pushing yourself to the limit, but not beyond, will eventually bring the desired result.
F. No one avoids this: it is ballet's great democratiser, the well established members of the company working alongside the newest recruits.
G. It takes at least a decade of high-quality, regular practice to become an expert in any physical discipline.
Tips for the B2 First (Cambridge English: First, FCE) Gapped Text (Part 6)
Part 6, the Gapped Text, focuses on how texts are structured. Here are some tips to follow when attempting the Gapped Text task:
Read the whole text first before you attempt to answers any questions. This will give you an idea of the overall structure.
Read the paragraphs to get a general idea of the topic of each one.
Look out for cohesive devices that help link ideas. These could be things like time phrases, cause and effect or contrasting linking words and expressions, pronouns or synonyms that refer forwards or backwards in the text.
Make sure any paragraph you chose fits both with what comes before and after. You will often find one that flows logically from the preceding paragraph but which does not fit coherently with the following paragraph.
As you work through the task, be prepared to change your opinion on an earlier choice. If you don't do this and your original choice is wrong, you are limiting the choice of remaining paragraphs.
Don't simply choose a paragraph because it contains a similar word or words to the paragraph before or after. You will need to match paragraphs based on the development of ideas or opinions.
Read as wide a range of texts as possible, including newspapers, magazines, novels, academic texts etc.
Create your own practice tests. Cut up articles in newspapers or magazines into their individual paragraphs and practise putting them back in the correct order.