Read the passage and complete tasks 19 - 20.
According to the World Health Organization, around 3.4 million people die every year from diseases caused
by inadequate water or sanitation and 99% of these deaths occur in the developing world. Last night’s Not a
Drop to Drink on the BBC followed the attempts of Gerry Mariner, a worker for the charity Water.org in his
attempts to deal with this problem. Gerry has been trying to provide clean and safe drinking water to a small
community on the edge of the Namibia desert, a region that experiences only about 14 inches (350 mm) of
rainfall a year, and one of the driest places on the planet.
Mariner has been living in the small community of Poopoolupu. His role there is to try to provide a solution
to the problem of access to drinking water. Most of the country is a desert, and the population of the region
relies on groundwater and wells for water. Before the arrival of Water.org, the women of the village were
walking seven hours a day to get water for their villages – three hours to the nearest well, and four hours
back. The way back usually takes longer because the women are carrying heavy buckets of precious water
and must not spill a drop. To make the problem worse, the wells are drying up in that region. Mariner’s job
is to dig new ones.
The documentary was beautifully shot: the surrounding desert of Namibia provides lots of opportunities for
spectacular landscape shots. However, this emphasis on the landscape made the viewers feel that the director
did not think the problems of the villagers were important. We didn’t actually see the women carrying their
heavy buckets of water, we only heard about them, while instead we saw incredible shots of shifting dunes
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and blue skies. Watching it on a cold dark rainy night in the middle of February, I looked longingly at the
shots of dry sandy beaches, blue sky, and hot sun, and the villagers of Poopoolupu and their water problems
seemed unimportant. This is surely the wrong message to give the audience.
Task 19: Decide whether the statements are true (T) or false (F). Write T or F on the answer sheet.
(0.4pt)
1. Not a Drop to Drink is a variety show produced by BBC.
2. The journey back from the well takes longer because the women takes a longer path.
Task 20: What do the underlined words in the passage refer to? Write A, B, C or D on the answer
sheet. (0.4pt)
1. ones
A. buckets of water B. villages C. wells D. women
2. problems
A. dry sandy beaches, shifting dunes and blue skies
B. villagers of Poopoolupu
C. opportunities for spectacular landscape shots
D. drying-up wells and difficult access to drinking water
