Reading Comprehension #5 - Upper-Intermediate

Read the article and complete the gaps (1–5) with the sentences (A–E).

You only get one chance 0   One thing in common   Look on the Internet and you will find thousands of websites dedicated to extreme sports, from mountain boarding to barefoot waterskiing, sky surfing to white-water kayaking. Although these sports are all very different, they do all have one thing in common and that is a high level of inherent danger. 1   ___________________________ Whether on land, water, or in the air, these sports involve speed, height, a high level of physical exertion and spectacular stunts. One of the most extreme of these extreme sports is base jumping.  BASE stands for Buildings, Aerials, Spans (bridges) and Earth, so basically anything that is tall enough to allow someone to jump off. There are people risking life and limb all over the world and they been doing so since the 1990s when the sport really started to take off. 2   ___________________________ Dan ‘the Man’ Witchalls is Britain’s premier base jumper, a veteran with ten years’ experience. He is a roofer by profession, an appropriate line of work for someone addicted to heights. ‘I can’t drive past a new building or crane without thinking, maybe, maybe …’ he says. His business card shows him in his trademark jade-and-white jumpsuit, leaping from the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur. It reads: ‘Extreme Roofing’. 3   ___________________________ While for many sportsmen, base jumping is like an act of personal rebellion, to Witchalls it is not.  He claims that he does it because it’s fun. At his house there are two places dedicated to base: a room filled with photographs of his most impressive jumps with every building named and dated, and the room where he keeps his equipment. 4   ___________________________ The room full of photos, while highlighting Witchalls’ triumphs, also serves as a sad reminder of just how dangerous this sport can be. There are six orders of service from the funerals of jumpers he has known, including Angus ‘Gus’ Hutchison-Brown, a popular British jumper who died in Switzerland in 2009.  Over 150 people have died over the years and the list of near-fatal injuries is quite horrific yet the sport goes on with people always looking for greater challenges. 5   ___________________________ So, how do you go about becoming an officially-recognised base jumper? You can apply for an official number when you’ve carried out all four genres of jumps successfully (building, aerial, span and earth). At the moment about 1,400 base numbers have been allocated, but none to women. I wonder if this means anything?!

 

Complete the gaps (1–5) using these sentences (A–F).

One thing in common

A The signs of success.

B The derivation of BASE.

C The cost in human terms.

D Qualifications needed..

E A well-known expert?.

 

 

 

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