1 SPEAKING In pairs, look at the photos and discuss the questions.
1 What is the problem in each photo?
Suggested answers 1 In A, the shop is going to close/go out of business. In B, she has burnt the pies.
Could failure be a step towards success? Say why?
2 Students’ own answers
2 9.2 Listen to four people talking about mistakes. For Speakers 1–4, choose from the list (a–d) what each speaker says.
Speaker: 1 □ 2 □ 3 □ 4 □
a This mistake was about doing things in the wrong order.
b Other people took the mistake less seriously than the speaker initially did.
c This mistake came as a shock to the speaker.
d The speaker believes their life would be better now if they hadn’t made the mistake.
Answers 1 b 2 c 3 a 4 d
3 9.2 Listen again and answer the questions.
1 How did Speaker 1 eventually get into the meeting room?
2 How would Speaker 2’s life have been di erent if she hadn’t made a mistake?
3 Why didn’t Speaker 3’s idea work?
4 What has Speaker 4 learnt from her mistake?
Answers
1 He climbed through the window.
2 She would have gone to a diff erent university and she wouldn’t have met her husband.
3 Because the gym owners weren’t interested in it.
4 She has learnt to save some of her money.
4. Complete the table with the words from the box.
| ,blunder, flop, flourish, get nowhere, masterstroke, mess up, pay off setback |
| flourish, masterstroke, pay off | Success |
| blunder, flop, get nowhere, mess up, setback | Failure |
5. Now complete the extracts from the recording with the correct form of the words from Exercise 4.
1. I was embarrassed and felt like I'd really messed up.
2. It was a huge blunder and I didn't get the marks I needed to go to Oxford
3. In the end, I flourished there and got a great degree.
4. I had what I thought was a really good idea - a masterstroke.
5. I really tried, but just got nowhere, and in the end I gave up.
6. If I'd invested a few weeks in finding out about my business idea, it would have really paid off.
7. But I did learn something from the setback- do your market research first.
8. The idea was a complete flop.
