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Page 80 - Exercise 4

Listening - Lucky breaks

Part A - Listen to these stories about lucky breaks. What were the people doing before they got their Lucky breaks? What were their lucky breaks?

1 - Yang Zhifa, about 40 years ago, Yang Zhifa was just an ordinary Chinese farmer. He was living off the land that was very poor. Today he is recognized as the man who discovered a highly important archaeological site, sometimes called the 8th wonder of the world. What happened? One morning in March 1974, Zhifa and some other local farmers were looking for water, as they were drilling a well hit something hard. They found pieces of pottery and ancient weapons. Immediately the head of the village reported the news to the local government, and in May 1976, the digging began. To everyone’s surprise, there were over 8000 soldiers made of terra-cotta lying underneath his land. The soldiers were over 2000 years old and had been buried along with Emperor Chin, who wanted to take an army with him to his next life. Today young Zhifa spends much of his time at the terra-cotta Army Museum. He sits, poses for pictures and proudly signs autographs for the millions of tourists who visit from all over the world.

2 - Gwyneth Paltrow, you could say that actress Gwyneth Paltrow was born lucky. After all she is the daughter of two well-known talents. Her mother is an actress and her father was a writer, producer and director. But like all people wanting to break into movies. She had to go to drama school and learn how to act. Today Gwyneth Paltrow is a successful international actress and has even won an Oscar award. So how did it all begin? According to Ms. Paltrow, her lucky break came when she was 18 years old. She was at a movie theater with her parents while they were waiting in line to buy some popcorn. She noticed that Steven Spielberg was also in line. She was just about to order when he came over to her and said, hey, can I ask you a favor, would you play Wendy in the movie Hook? “Sure” she said, and so she got her first movie role.