Summer School Adventures.DOC

SUMMER SCHOOL
ADVENTURES
Stephen Speight
SUMMARY
Six teenagers from different parts of Europe come to a summer school to learn
language. After a while they become close to each other. At the end of their course
there is a weekend competition. The ones who have the most interesting activity will
be the winners. Six teenagers form two groups. One group chooses sailing and the
other pony-trekking. The sailors hire a boat and begin to sail along the coast. First
they see something strange on a fast motorboat: some men unloading some white
boxes from the boat to an inflatable. Are they smugglers? What will the sailors do?
Then there is more excitement for them: a man falling overboard. Will they be able to
rescue him?
There is also an unpleasant surprise for the trekkers. While they are trying to find their
way, they meet a strange man. He is an escaped prisoner. He killed two people, but
why? And how did he manage to escape the famous Dartmoor Prison? He holds the
three teenagers as hostages. Will he do any harm to them? Will the trekkers be able
to contact the police? And who will win the prize?
Enjoy your reading, have fun and excitement....
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Stephan Speight studied English at Oxford, where he met his future wife. After several
years of teaching in comprehensive schools, he moved to Edge Hill College of
Education. From there he was invited to take up a post in a new English Department
in Dortmund, Germany. He has been at Dortmund University ever since, teaching
language, literature and technical English, and supervising students on teaching
practice. He began work on readers and textbooks soon after arriving in Germany,
and he has now been working more or less continuously as an educational author for
more than twenty years. This work has included a lighthearted book entitled
Understanding England, and a textbook for senior pupils, which deals with English
newspapers and television. He contributes regularly to the periodical Praxis des
neusprachlichen Unterrichts, for which he writes a column called “Would you have
marked it wrong?” Extracts from the column have recently appeared in book form
with the title Right or Wrong? He also lectures and publishes articles on second
language conversation, which was the topic of his dissertation. In 1997 he was
awarded the University Teaching Prize of Dortmund University. Other professional and
leisure interests include modern fiction, life in Britain, caravanning, sailing, jogging
and playing the harpsichord.
1

ACTIVITIES (Photocopiable)
BEFORE READING THE BOOK
Answer the following questions
1. What do you know about “summer schools”?
2. What kinds of activities are being done in summer schools?
3. Put the following words under the headings “sailing” and “ponytrekking”.
rudder hill tent shipping forecast seasick compass
mound map mainsail skipper pannier bags steer
tide oats dismount saddle course deck
Sailing : __________, __________, __________, __________, ___________,
__________, __________, __________, __________
Pony-trekking: __________, __________, __________, __________, ___________,
__________, __________, __________, __________
WHILE READING THE BOOK
CHAPTER: 1
A. Write the names of the characters in the gaps:
1. _____ is from France. He is a quick-thinker.
2. _____ is from the Netherlands. He is quite ambitious and wanted
to be a lawyer.
3. _____ is from Germany. He is a tall boy with hair that stuck up
straight from his head.
4. _____ is from Spain. She has got an Alfa Romeo sports car.
5. _____ is from Greece. She is a dark haired girl.
6. _____ is from Denmark. She is a bouncy girl with lots of energy.
B. Write a word with the same meaning:
1. Having a strong desire to be successful _______
2. A high, very steep area of rock _______
3. The part of a vehicle which you use to go slower or stop _______
4. Not nice _______
5. To turn over in the water _______
6. Dirty _______
CHAPTER: 2
A. Correct the underlined words:
1. Dolores knew that people went fishing ( )on Dartmoor.
2. Tom was beginning to fall for Eleni. ( )
3. On a map ( ) the land is more or less empty, except for
things like church towers which you can see from out at sea.
4. Kirsten knew that Dartmoor ( ) was very popular with sailors.
5. They would like to spend two days and the night in between out
on the cliffs. ( )
2

B. Complete the following sentences:
1. Dolores has a lot of knowledge about horses because _____________
____________________________________________________________________.
2. Kirsten does not want to go pony-trekking because _______________
____________________________________________________________________.
3. The sailors went to Salcombe because ____________________________
____________________________________________________________________.
4. Tom suggested hiring a boat with a cabin because ________________
____________________________________________________________________.
5. The trekkers didn’t prefer the ponies at the first place because _____
___________________________________________________________________.
6. Dolores trained Markus and Eleni on riding because ________________
____________________________________________________________________.
CHAPTER: 3
A. Are these sentences true or false?
1. The trekkers bought tents and sleeping bags from a shop. ( )
2. At first André and Tom didn’t help Kirsten because it was raining. ( )
3. The trekkers worried because they didn’t know exactly where they
were. ( )
4. On Friday afternoon the sailors didn’t have any problems because
there was a nice weather. ( )
5. All the sailors felt seasick. ( )
B. Match the beginnings with the endings:
1. The trekkers had so much equipment that ________________________.
2. It rained really hard on the Tuesday _______________________________.
3. The sailors put everything away carefully __________________________.
4. Markus used a compass and a map ______________________________.
5. They stopped their ponies _______________________________________.
6. It’s really horrible to be seasick ____________________________________.
a. not funny at all.
b. and dismounted.
c. when the sailors went to Salome to try out their boat.
d. they couldn’t get it all in the back of the Alfa.
e. to determine where they were.
f. in order not to have a terrible mess later.
3

CHAPTER: 4
A. Put these sentences into the correct order to tell what happened to the
trekkers:
1. While Eleni whispered to Dolores that he could be dangerous, the
man heard her.
2. While they were talking about what they would do, they heard a
quiet voice.
3. Eleni looked at the sun and tried to determine their place on the map.
4. He threatened them showing his bag and said if they did what he
said, he wouldn’t be dangerous. He had got a gun in his bag.
5. They came to the top of the hill when it got dark.
6. There was a man coming from behind the rock. He was a strange man.
7. When they were at the top of the hill, they couldn’t see the lake again.
8. The trekkers went up and down hills for about six hours, but they
couldn’t find the lake.
9. The man, who didn’t look like a traveller, offered that he could take
them to the lake.
B. Put these sentences into the correct order to tell what happened to
the sailors:
1. While Tom and Kirsten chatting on the deck, Tom noticed a fast
motorboat.
2. Kirsten called the coast guard.
3. After they went round Start Point, they all felt better.
4. The coastguard officers found out that there were only bottles of
wine in the white boxes.
5. They thought that they were smugglers because they passed some
white boxes from the motorboat to an inflatable.
6. Kirsten made some to for Tom and André because they were seasick.
7. André tried and got the hang of steering the boat.
8. After a while, the coastguard boat came and the officers looked
into the white boxes.
CHAPTER: 5
A. Circle the correct word:
1. Kirsten put their time of arrival in the boat’s diary / logbook.
2. Their evening meal was spaghetti bolognaise / pizza.
3. “Hurry up with the cooking.” The man said. “I am starving / dying.
4. “There is a famous church / prison on Datmoor.” He said.
5. The tree youngsters were the man’s hostages / friends.
6. The man used to work at a company / bank.
7. He put money in a secret place / account.
8. The police found mud on the window-sill / doorstep and his
fingerprints / footprints in the flowerbed.
9. Kirsten forgot about the tides / waves.
10.Dolores pulled herself out of her sleeping bag and walked / crawled
to the door of the tent.
4

B. Answer the following questions:
1. How do you think the man escaped from the prison?
2. Why did he sentence to life imprisonment?
3. Why did he kill two people?
4. Why didn’t the man explain how he escaped?
5. Who managed to save the boat while it was leaning because of the tides?
6. How did the trekkers contact with the police?
7. How did they pass the position on to the police?
8. Did the police come on time to arrest the killer?
CHAPTER: 6
A. Match the words with the definitions:
1. statement
2. breathe
3. rush
4. leaflet
5. roll
6. develop
7. drag
8. munch
9. drift
10. head for
a. a piece of printed-paper, which gives
information about something.
b. to bite and chew something noisily.
c. to go in a certain direction.
d. something that is said or written formally.
e. to use chemicals to make a photograph visible.
f. a round shaped small bread.
g. to take air into the lungs and blow it out again.
h. to be carried or moved along by wind or water.
i. to go quickly.
j. to pull something slowly.
B. Choose the correct item:
1. On Saturday morning Kirsten was writing notes in the ________.
a. cockpit b. deck c. cabin
2. After breakfast they took the _______ across the harbour.
a. boat b. ferry c. ship
3. When the trekkers got up in the morning, the grass was very wet but
they had a ______.
a. ground-sheet b. blanket c. cloth
4. The killer forgot his _______ .
a. mobile phone b. gun c. GPS
5. When Kirsten steered the boat towards the old man, the young man
watched her ______.
a. helplessly b. carefully c. cheerfully
6. After the sailors managed to rescue both men, the older one wasn’t
_______well.
a. sleeping b. breathing c. speaking
5

CHAPTER: 7
A. Put the following sentences into the correct order and choose a verb from the list:
pushed checked set off packed expecting
1. equipment / all / the trekkers / their / backs / their
2. late / because of / the sailors / the rescue
3. hadn’t / before / left / they / the tank / they
4. not / very / a / bright / trekkers / policeman / and / mechanical / old /
an / typewriter
5. hole / a / rabbit / the killer / the para-glider / into
B. Who said the following sentences?
1. “Tell us where we are once every hour.” _______
2. “Hey, skipper – What’s wrong?” _______
3. “I’ve found the tank.” _______
4. “Thank God for that.” _______
5. “Flying-that’s why he needed so much money. He said flying was his hobby!”
_______
6. “He held out his arms like this when he was talking about the escape.” _______
CHAPTER: 8
A. Complete the sentences with a suitable word from the list:
scared dies down rescue bit by bit prize
recaptured deadline head and shoulders above the rest
1. We would better wait until the snow _______________ before we go out.
2. Both killers were _______________ by the police.
3. When the miners were trapped after the explosion, only a
_______________ team managed to save them.
4. Friday is the _______________ for handing in this project.
5. My little brother is really _______________ of thunder.
6. Ted’s project about the save the nature was _______________, of course,
he was the winner.
7. The hill was so steep that they climbed up _______________ .
8. First _______________ was a week’s holiday for two in Venice.
B. Discuss the following questions:
1. Think and say different titles for the reports.
2. If you were the teenagers, which activity would you choose? Why?
6

AFTER READING THE BOOK
Write in the answers to these clues from the story. The sentence in the boxes is an
English expression. Write it in the frame here:
............................................................................................................................
1. At first, the six teenagers __________ on nearly
everything.
2. Tom began to fall in __________ with Dolores.
3. Dolores thought that __________ was awful.
4. There would be a weekend __________ at the end of
the course.
5. __________ are the things, which help sailors to find
their way around.
6. While the police were investigating the murder, they
found mud on the __________.
7. Dolores had her own horse at home so she was
an _________ rider.
8. The killer had an expensive hobby - __________.
9. A GPS works out the position by _________.
10. The sailors called their boat _________.
11. The escaped killer held the trekkers as ________.
12. The landlady was the killer’s _________.
13. The people who were thought as smugglers
had a holiday _________ up on the cliff.
14. Kirsten was the __________ of the boat.
15. The trekkers used Dolores’s ________
to call the police.
16. The killer _________ from Dartmoor Prison.
17. The sailors _________ an old man’s life.
18. The police found the killer’s footprints in the ___.
19. The police came to the moor by _________.
20. The sailors thought that the men who were
passing some white boxes from the boat to the
inflatable were __________.
21. It was a bad _________ be with a killer in a tent.
- - - - - - - -
- - -
- - - - - -
- - - - - - - - -
- - - -
- - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - -
- - - -
- - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - -
- - - - -
- - - -
- - - - - -
- - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - -
- - - -
- - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - -
- - -
7