With answer key for advanced

narrator:  Now listen again.
narrator:
Track 6. Listening Part 2, 
worksheet 3
narrator: you will hear a talk by a woman called 
Ellie Matthews about her life working 
as a writer and illustrator of children’s 
books. For questions 1–8, complete 
the sentences with a word or short 
phrase. 
woman: 
It’s a pleasure to be here and tell you 
about my life as an illustrator and 
2a 1 a thoroughly/totally 
b pretty/fairly
c sort of/kind of
2 a completely/absolutely b rather/somewhat
c virtually/almost
3 a slightly/a bit
b terribly/awfully
c generally/mostly
2b 1 awfully
2 rather
3 kind of
4 thoroughly 5 almost
3 1 unbelievably
2 loneliness
3 passionately
4 significance
5 noticeable
6 unemployed
7 existence
8 imperfect
9 disadvantaged
Listening Part 2:3
1 1 imagination
2 advertising agency
3 travel brochures
4 red hair
5 letters
6 open spaces
7 paper
8 wisdom
children’s author … a profession I really 
just fell into. It’s not as if my art teacher 
or parents spotted any artistic skills in 
me when I was a young girl. They tended 
to focus on my vivid imagination … I 
was always entertaining my friends with 
outrageous stories and so not really seen 
as a good influence at all! 
 
However, I loved painting and opted 
to attend Art College. By graduation 
I’d accumulated a sizeable portfolio 
of work to showcase my talents and 
applied for jobs. I remember one was a 
position at a major art gallery; I didn’t get 
it – fortunately as it turns out, but I felt 
crushed to be rejected for that and for 
a role at a big advertising agency. I do 
sometimes wonder how differently things 
might have panned out for me.
 
Anyway, I earned virtually nothing for 
two years, just bits and pieces doing 
illustrations for magazines and some work 
on a children’s comic. The only financially 
rewarding thing I did in those early years 
as an illustrator was for travel brochures, 
but I wasn’t enamoured by the idea of 
doing that forever.
 
Meanwhile, I’d been writing and drawing 
pictures for a children’s book of my own 
about a girl called Carly. I sent the finished 
manuscript to various publishers and was 
stunned one day to hear that one of them 
wanted to publish it. To my amazement, 
the first edition of Carly flew off the 
shelves in bookshops. I think it was her 
red hair that made her such a distinctive 
character. She was a skinny little girl 
with super-thick glasses − somewhat 
based on my schoolgirl self. One source 
of inspiration for things she did and 
felt was going through letters written 
to my grandmother by my mum when 
I was young. They stirred my own vivid 
recollections … like reading old diaries I 
guess, where the mention of some event 
or person triggers memories of a whole 
period of childhood. 
 
Anyway, after Carly, I left Britain for the 
USA. I’d been taken there a lot as a 
child – my mother’s parents lived there. 
I don’t deal well with the cold in Britain, 
and I loved the friendliness over there. 
In addition, I’ve always adored its open 
spaces, and that’s what influenced me to 
make the move to live and work there, 
rather than the weather. It’s just so vast. 
 
I now share an apartment in New England 
with my husband and kids. In my studio

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