Question

Read the text. Choose from sentences A–F the one which fits each gap (1–5). There is one extra sentence. A She was able to do this in 2005 when a youth group asked for volunteers to go to Thailand.

B She loved it from the start, and she won her first competition at the age of eight.

C She also works hard to promote healthy lifestyles and diet.

D She has never wasted time feeling sorry for herself.

E She was rushed to hospital, where doctors carried out emergency surgery.

F At first, she wasn’t keen on all the publicity.

1

2

3

4

5

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BETHANY HAMILTON – SOUL SURFER

Bethany Hamilton was definitely born with the sea in her blood. Her parents, who were enthusiastic surfers, had moved to Hawaii before she was born so that they could spend more time in the water. With her parents and two older brothers, she started learning to surf almost as soon as she could walk.

(1) So, it was no surprise when, on the night before Halloween in 2003, she went for an evening’s surfing with her friends. The waves weren’t very high and she was just lying on her board, relaxing, when a three-metre-long tiger shark came up from below and bit off her left arm.

Thanks to her quick-thinking friends, Bethany survived despite losing a large amount of blood. (2) When she came to after the operation, her first words were “When can I surf again?” She didn’t have to wait long. On November 26th, she returned to the sea on her surfboard and, in January 2004, she entered her first competition since the attack.

Around the same time as she was returning to surfing competitions, Bethany was also busy with appearances on television and in newspaper interviews. (3) She was a modest person by nature, and didn’t enjoy all the attention. But, eventually, she realised that it gave her an opportunity to tell people about her life and her beliefs.

In the same year, 2004, she wrote her autobiography: Soul Surfer: A true story of faith, family and fighting to get back on the board. This brought her story to a much wider audience. Despite still being a young teenager with her own disability, Bethany was determined to help others who had even worse problems. (4) This country had suffered badly from a tsunami in December 2004 and desperately needed international help. Bethany went there and was able to help local people overcome their fear of the water.

Bethany won her first national surfing competition in 2005 and she turned professional two years later. Although surfing takes up a lot of her time, she has other passions. She works hard to raise money for several charities. (5) In 2011, her amazing story was made into a film and, once again, Bethany was able to reach an even wider audience and has become a role model for many people with disabilities. When a journalist asked what she would do if she could get her arm back, her reply was immediate. She wouldn’t want to change her life as it was the loss of her arm which made everything that she has achieved possible.

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