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READING COLLECTING-THINGS Matching

The document describes four individuals with unique collecting hobbies: John Hill collects sewing machines, Will Smith collects vintage cameras, Kate Williams specializes in plastic objects, and Jane Bruce focuses on art deco fans. Each person's journey into collecting is detailed, including their motivations, challenges, and aspirations for their collections. The text also includes a set of questions related to the information provided about each collector.

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20 views3 pages

READING COLLECTING-THINGS Matching

The document describes four individuals with unique collecting hobbies: John Hill collects sewing machines, Will Smith collects vintage cameras, Kate Williams specializes in plastic objects, and Jane Bruce focuses on art deco fans. Each person's journey into collecting is detailed, including their motivations, challenges, and aspirations for their collections. The text also includes a set of questions related to the information provided about each collector.

Uploaded by

thhy28062005
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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IELTS For Beginners

The Rosy Hub – 0563 003 788

UNIT 3: HOBBIES, LEISURE AND ENTERTAINMENT

Skill focused: Reading

This text for the B2 First Reading Part 7 describes four people who enjoy collecting things.
Read the article, then answer the following questions.

A - John Hill

John Hill shares his home with about 200 sewing machines. His passion began when he
was searching for bits of second-hand furniture and kept seeing ‘beautiful old sewing
machines that were next to nothing to buy’. He couldn’t resist them. Then a friend had a
machine that wouldn’t work, so she asked John to look at it for her. At that stage he was not
an authority on the subject, but he worked on it for three days and eventually got it going.

Later he opened up a small stand in a London market. ‘Most people seemed


uninterested. Then a dealer came and bought everything I’d taken along. I thought,
“Great! This is my future life.” But after that I never sold another one there and ended up
with a stall in another market which was only moderately successful.’

Nowadays, he concentrates on domestic machines in their original box containers with


their handbooks. He is often asked if he does any sewing with them. The answer is that,
apart from making sure that they work, he rarely touches them.

B - Will Smith

As a boy, Will Smith collected hundreds of vintage cameras, mostly from jumble sales
and dustbins. Later, when the time came to buy his first house, he had to sell his
valuable collection in order to put down a deposit. A few years after, he took up the
interest again and now has over a thousand cameras, the earliest dating from 1860.

Now Will ‘just cannot stop collecting’ and hopes to open his own photographic museum
where members of the public will be able to touch and fiddle around with the cameras.
Whilst acknowledging that the Royal Camera Collection in Bath is probably more
extensive than his own, he points out that ‘so few of the items are on show there at the
same time that I think my own personal collection will easily rival it.’
C - Kate Williams

Kate Williams is one of the foremost authorities on plastics in Britain. She has, in every
corner of her house, a striking collection of plastic objects of every kind, dating from the
middle of the last century and illustrating the complex uses of plastic over the years.

Kate’s interest started when she was commissioned to write her first book. In order to
do this, she had to start from scratch; so she attended a course on work machinery,
maintaining that if she didn’t understand plastics manufacture then nobody else would.
As she gathered the information for her book, she also began to collect pieces of plastic
from every imaginable source: junk shops, arcades, and the cupboards of friends. She
also collects ‘because it is vital to keep examples. We live in an age of throw-away
items: phones, computers, hair dryers – they are all replaced so quickly.’

Kate’s second book, Classic Plastics: from Bakelite to High Tech, is the first published
guide to plastics collecting. It describes collections that can be visited and gives simple
and safe home tests for identification. She admits that ‘plastic is a mysterious substance
and many people are frightened of it. Even so, the band of collectors is constantly
expanding.’

D - Jane Bruce

Jane Bruce already had twenty years of collecting one thing or another behind her when
she started collecting ‘art deco’ fans in the 1990s. It happened when she went to an
auction sale and saw a shoe-box filled with them. Someone else got them by offering a
higher price and she was very cross.

Later, to her astonishment, he went round to her flat and presented them to her. ‘That
was how it all started.’ There were about five fans in the shoe-box and since then
they’ve been exhibited in the first really big exhibition of ‘art deco’ in America. The fans
are not normally on show, however, but are kept behind glass. They are extremely
fragile and people are tempted to handle them. The idea is to have, one day, a black-
lacquered room where they can be more easily seen.

Jane doesn’t restrict herself to fans of a particular period, but she will only buy a fan if it
is in excellent condition. The same rule applies to everything in her house.
1. Who had to re-start their collection? .........B.....

2. Who was misled by an early success? ....A.......

3. Who received an unexpected gift? ......D......

4. Who admits to making little practical use of their collection? ....A........

5. Who regrets the rapid disappearance of certain items? .......C.....

6. Who is aware that a fuller collection of items exists elsewhere? ....B.......

7. Who has a history of collecting different items? .....D.......

8. Who performed a favour for someone they knew? .......A.......

9. Who is a national expert on their subject? .......C......

10. Who is aware that they form part of a growing group? .....A.......

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