1. Answer: creativity

6. Answer: competition
Explain increased … in schools
– Key words: free play, limited, fear, increased, schools
– The author mentions “Opportunities for free play” by saying that they “are becoming increasingly scarce” and “outdoor play is curtailed” in the second and third sentence in paragraph 5. “Curtail” means to reduce something with the result that we can no longer continue to do it. So we can assume it is replaced by the word “limited” here. Therefore, we should focus on those sentences to find the reasons for that. Reasons which are listed include “perception of risk to do with traffic”, “parents wish to protect their children from being victims of crime” and “greater competition in academic learning and schools”. “Perception of risk” and “wish to protect their children from something” should be considered as fears. Therefore, “traffic” and “crime” are the answers for Question 4 and 5 (One word only and it should be a noun – after preposition “of”). The third reason mentioned is “greater competition” in schools and “greater” can be understood as “increased”, so the answer for Question 6 is “competition”‟.
7. Answer: evidence
Explain it is difficult to find … to support new policies
– Key words: difficult, find, support, new policies
– New policies are mentioned in paragraph 6, so we should pay attention here. As the word “difficult” is mentioned, we need to look for difficulties or disadvantages of supporting new policies. At first, the author mentions all the advantages, then he uses “but”, implying an added statement, usually something different from what he said before, so we can assume the next statement will be a disadvantage so we should focus here. “But what we often lack is the evidence to base policies on”. The phrase “to base policies on” can be considered as “to support new policies”, and “what they lack” means “it is difficult to find”, so the answer is “evidence”.
8. Answer: life
Explain research needs to study the impact of play on the rest of the child’s …
– Key words: research, study, impact, play, the rest, the child’s
– As the word needed is put behind a possessive adjective (child‟s), we need to look for a noun referring to the child. Paragraph 7 talks about the long – term impact of play. In the last sentence, the author explains that “long-term impact of play” means “the impact of play on the child‟s later life” while “later” refers to “the rest”. Therefore, what is needed to fill in the blank here is “life”.
9. Answer: TRUE
Explain Children with good self-control are known to be likely to do well at school later on  Key words: children, self-control, well, school, later
– Find the paragraph beginning: “In a study carried out by Baker….” This was a study of very young pre-school children. The study found that “children with greater self-control solved problems more quickly..” According to the next paragraph, play is therefore very significant for education, “because the ability to self-regulate (= to control oneself) has been shown to be a key predictor of academic performance”. So, developing good self-control through play means that children are likely to do well academically in school later on