Passive infinitive

Here

Matura

Intermediate - use of English interactive

Advanced - use of English interactive 1, 2,3,

4

Translation + reading comprehension Origo

Talking heads

Alan Leader has been hearing voices since he was 15. The first time it happened he was in a television shop. He had been upset by images of starving children in Biafra. Now a voice coming from a TV was telling him the famine was his fault, that somehow he was to blame. "I felt completely shocked by it," he recalls. For a year he told no one, afraid of the stigma attached, while the voices grew increasingly distressing. Eventually he was diagnosed as a schizophrenic, spent the next 15 years in and out of psychiatric units, and was put on long-term medication in an effort to staunch the noises in his head. He still hears voices.
There are five in all: two are aggressive and often argue with each other, while the others make trivial comments about wallpaper patterns or car number plates. But Leader, 47, who lives in north London, has been out of psychiatric care and off medication for more than 10 years. He has a full-time job, working in mental health services to help others with similar experiences. He has learned to live with his voices and, by accepting them, to control them. "I wouldn't know what to do without them now. They are part of me," he says.
However, the idea that voice-hearing can be an acceptable, even enriching, experience may well strike fear in the minds of the general public, which is used to headlines shrieking that voices 'ordered' someone to kill.

Solution

Short task - interactive

Reading comprehension

Matura exam practice

Intermediate level - questions

advanced level - individual long turn