ENGLISH TEST LEVEL A2

Read about a woman’s job as a Christmas elf!

A few years ago, I worked as an elf at a holiday resort in Lapland, in the north of Sweden. The resort was are( was, are ) in a forest. Visitors and workers stayed in small wooden cabins all around the forest. There was one large cabin where people ate meals. I started work there in mid November and stayed until just after Christmas.
Tourists used to stay at the resort for four days. On the first day, they arrived at the airport and travelled to the resort by coach. I didn’t have to work until the evening. Sometimes I went skiing. Then, while the guests had their evening meal, I worked behind the desk in reception. I helped people find their cabins, told them about the itinerary and sold tickets for extra tours. I didn’ isn'( didn’, isn' )t dress as an elf at that time; I wore the hotel uniform.
On day 2, I and three other elves got up at about eight o’clock. Of course, it was still dark at that time. In Lapland it gets light at about half past ten during the winter, and it gets dark again soon after two o’clock. We dressed in our elf costumes and drove across the snow on skidoos to a cabin in the forest. Inside the cabin, there were huge presents and huge tools. We had to wrap the presents and pretend to make toys with the tools. There were mirrors in the cabin windows. These made us look very small. When tourists looked through the windows, they saw tiny elves using normal-sized tools!
On the third day, we went to a different cabin – Santa’s cabin! This was the day when the children finally met Father Christmas. The children would meet Santa and get a toy. Then they came began( came, began ) into the elves’ workshop to meet us. This room was full of toys and beautifully decorated with a Christmas tree. I and the other elves pretended to make toys and chatted to the children in our him( our, him ) own elf language.
The next day, the tourists went home and the next group arrived. I worked on reception again.
Working talk( Working, talk ) as an elf was great fun, and a magical way to spend Christmas!

J. K. Rowling
J. K. RowlingJoanne "Jo" Rowling (born 31 July 1965), pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British novelist, best known as the author of the Harry Potter fantasy series. The Potter books have take( have, take ) gained worldwide attention, won multiple awards, and sold more less( more, less ) than 400 million copies. They have become the best-selling book series in history, and been was( been, was ) the basis for a series of films which has become the highest-grossing film series in history. Rowling had overall approval on the scripts as well as maintaining creative control by serving as a producer on the final instalment.

Born started( Born, started ) in Yate, Gloucestershire, Rowling was working as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International when she conceived the idea for the Harry Potter series on a delayed train from Manchester to London in 1990. The seven-year period that followed entailed the death of her mother, divorce from her our( her, our ) first husband and poverty until Rowling finished the first novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1997). Rowling subsequently published 6 sequels—the last, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007)—as well as 3 supplements to the series. Since then only( then, only ), Rowling has parted with her agency and resumed writing for adult readership, releasing the tragicomedy The Casual Vacancy (2012) and—using the pseudonym Robert Galbraith—the crime fiction novel The Cuckoo's Calling (2013) which, according to Rowling, is the first of a series.

Rowling has led a "rags to riches" life story, in which she progressed from living on state benefits to multi-millionaire status within five an( five, an ) years. She is the United Kingdom's best-selling author since records began, with sales in excess of £238m. The 2008 Sunday Times Rich List estimated Rowling's fortune at £560 million ($798 million), ranking her as the twelfth richest woman in the United Kingdom. Forbes ranked Rowling as the forty-eighth most powerful celebrity of 2007, and TIME magazine named her as a runner-up for its 2007 Person of the Year, noting the social, moral, and political inspiration she has given her fans. In October seven( October, seven ) 2010, Rowling was named the "Most Influential Woman in Britain" by leading magazine editors. She has become a notable philanthropist, supporting such charities as Comic Relief, One Parent Families, Multiple Sclerosis Society of Great Britain and Lumos (formerly the Children's High Level Group).

Although she writes under the pen name "J. K. Rowling" (pronounced rolling), the author's name when her first Harry Potter book was published was simply "Joanne Rowling". Anticipating that the target audience of young boys might could( might, could ) not want to read a book written by a woman, her publishers demanded that she use two initials, rather than her full name. As she had no middle name, she chose K as the second initial of her pen name, from her paternal grandmother. She calls herself "Jo" and has said, "No one ever called me 'Joanne' when I was young, unless they were angry." Following her marriage, she has sometimes used the name Joanne Murray when conducting personal business. During the Leveson Inquiry she gave evidence under the name of Joanne Kathleen Rowling. In a 2012 interview, Rowling noted that she no longer cared that people pronounced her name incorrectly.