Page 134 - IELTS Preparation Grammar and Vocab

Exam practice
II

Reading and Use of English Part 7
You are going to read a newspaper article. Six paragraphs have been removed from the article. Choose from
the paragraphs A -0 the one which fits each gap (1 -6). There is one extra paragraph which you do not
need to use.

Alexander McCall Smith: Terrible Orchestra?
Bestselling author Alexander McCall Smith explains why he started a band for useless musicians.

There are two emotions a parent can feel when the result that there are always a certain number of
watching the school orchestra perform. One is pride appalling performances which attract tiny audiences.
- the most common emotion in the circumstances
- and the other is envy. Wouldn't it have been great 4
fun to be in an orchestra and now ... it's too late. Or
The fortunes of the orchestra continued to improve,
is it?
even if its playing did not. We presumed to make
two CDs, which somehow got into the hands of
radio stations abroad. We have now been played
These musical islands are full of amateur orchestras, more than once by the Australian Broadcasting
but most of these are really rather good. We wanted Corporation, by the Canadian Broadcasting
something that would cater for those who really Corporation, and by National Public Radio in the
were very weak players, those who might have got United States.
as far as Grade 4 on their instruments and hovered
5
around that level for years. So we formed the Really
Terrible Orchestra in Edinburgh, a city known for
Even if the orchestra never gets to New York, that
having a number of fine amateur orchestras. The
will be enough. Of course New York was where the
name was carefully chosen: what it said was what
famous Florence Foster Jenkins would appear, at
you would get.
the Carnegie Hall, and torture her audience with her
2 terrible singing. Perhaps it's ready for an orchestra
that will live up to her.
Those who joined generally lived up to the name.
Some, though, stood out for their musical weakness 6
One cello player some years ago even had the notes
Which makes one wonder what is it that makes
played by the open strings written in pencil on the
people want to listen to a group of extremely bad
bridge of the instrument. Mother - a clarinetist -
musicians torturing a piece that most of them
had had only three or four lessons and could not go
cannot play? Is there something about failure and its
above the middle B flat. He played only the bottom
cheerful acceptance? Whatever it is, there's certainly
notes, and not very well.
something quintessentially British about it. And the
3 orchestra does a very fine 'Land of Hope and Glory'
- a semitone flat.
Our heads turned, we decided to hold a concert at
the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The important thing
about the Fringe is that anybody can perform, with

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