Insight Intermediate Unit 8 Reading And Use Of English

The THATCHEROur popular feature Amazing Jobs takes a look at a really unusual occupation this week. Tim Darby left school at sixteen with very few qualifications, but, although he does admit to wishing he’d worked just a little bit harder at his studies, he has no regrets about leaving the classroom and finding a job. Only two years on from his last day at school, Tim finds himself up on a roof each day, working as a thatcher – one of the oldest, most traditional crafts that still survives in England. If you’ve ever visited a small English village, you may have seen the beautiful old roofs on ancient cottages which are made of thousands of long, thin water reeds, all packed tightly together. Well, they are difficult to maintain, and that’s Tim’s job. He spends his working life up a ladder in all weathers, putting together thatched roofs.In his job, Tim travels all over southern England, so it wasn’t easy to track him down, but eventually I found him on top of a 17th century cottage in a small village in the county of Dorset. He told me how he had been spending the last few weeks and what he would have been doing if it hadn’t been the middle of summer.‘At this time of year, when it’s warm and sunny, I’m up on the roofs restoring and reconstructing houses like this one,’ said Tim. ‘But if you’d met up with me back in February, you would have seen me doing a very different job – my favourite. In the colder months, our job is to cut the water reed, which grows in rivers. It’s a thick, straight grass and if you gather it together in bundles and dry it, you’ll have great thatch. It’s traditionally used near the coast. If I was working in a village in the middle of the country, I’d be using something else – wheat, perhaps. So, our job is very seasonal and varied – preparing the thatch in the winter and repairing roofs in the summer.’As we chatted, Tim went on to add that most of the work he got to do was on historic houses, and that he never got to work on anything new. He pointed out there were older, more experienced thatchers in his company whose expertise lay in the challenging art of creating new roofs on houses that had just been built. However, he has no great desire to get into that line of work.‘What I enjoy most about my job is having to push myself every day,’ Tim told me. ‘Thatching is highly-skilled work, so there’s always something new to learn – and, of course, being in the open air in the summer is fantastic. If I hadn’t got into this line of work, I’d probably be spending most of my days in an office or a shop in a dead-end job, and, of course, I’d be neither fit nor sun-tanned!’

According to the text, Tim Darby has a typical job. 

  Tim wishes he’d worked harder at school. ___

Tim left school approximately two years ago. 

During the warmer months you will often find Tim working in a village.

Tim works in lots of different places throughout the year. 

Tim prefers the work he does in the summer to the work he does in the winter. 

Roof thatch can be made from different raw materials. 

It’s more difficult to put a thatched roof on a new house than on an old house. 

Tim has nothing else to learn about his job. 

Tim enjoys being outside in his job. 

A FIRST JOBIf you ask most young people, they 11____________ you that they don’t want to 12____________ rely on their parents for money. That’s why finding a first job is so important to young people. Here’s some advice for getting off on the right 13____________ in the workplace. A careers advisor told me that first 14 ____________ were vital at an interview. Young job applicants 15____________ be arrogant. She also suggested 16____________ sure you 17____________ lots of questions to ask at the interview. Some people recommend that you know as much as possible about the job you’re applying for, and to make sure it’s a job you’ve really decided 18 ____________ ! You don’t want to 19____________ the wrong decision, and think, if only I 20 ____________ so quickly.