The Art of Asking

Below you'll find a lot of exercises related to this video. Watch the video one section at a time, and answer the questions for each section before you continue to the next part.

Answers to vocabulary questions are at the bottom of the page.
To answer the discussion questions, post your answers in the comments box below.

PART 1: AMANDA THE 'HUMAN STATUE'
(0:00-2:50)


PART 1 GLOSSARY

These are words that appear in the first three minutes of the video. They're useful for understanding what Amanda is talking about, but you don't need to know them for IELTS:

bucks (US): dollars.
a freak: a very strange person who doesn't 'fit' in society.
to be harassed: it's when people speak to you aggressively, and tell
    you that they don't like you or they don't like what you're doing.
to yell: to shout (usually in an angry way)


VOCABULARY

  a.  - Amanda says that, after she graduated from university, she spent
         five years being a ______________ living statue called the
         eight-foot ____________. She made her living from this until
         her band started to become successful.

         Listen and find the missing words. Then choose the right definition
         for the two expressions below.

      - "eight-foot" means
                          ---     with eight feet, like a spider    240cm tall   very bad at dancing  
 
      - "to make a living" means
                          ---      to earn money so that you can live    to have a baby    to create an army of zombies  

   b. When someone gave Amanda money, she offered them a flower
        and made intense, prolonged eye-contact with that person. If
        they didn't take the flower, she made a gesture of sadness and
        longing.

       - "intense eye-contact" means      

                           ---       you look at someone very quickly     you make someone uncomfortable by looking at them     you look at someone with very strong emotions  

       - "prolonged" means    
                           ---        something continues for a longer time than usual      an industrial process has made an object longer than usual      a family gathering seems like it may never end  

       - a "longing" is

                           ---        trying to find out the length of an objectnbsp;     jumping as far as you can (an Olympic sport)      wanting something very much, and feeling sad because of this  

   c. Amanda enjoyed some aspects of this job, because she had
       "profound encounters" with people. 

       - "profound" means
                           ---        deep and important      loud and impolite      something you find after it was lost for a long time  

       - an "encounter" is

                            ---         calculating the bill at a restaurant       the place where you pay in a supermarket       an unplanned meeting OR discovering a new idea  

DISCUSSION

1a. What did Amanda like the most about being a human statue?

1b. What did some people say to her that hurt her? Why do you
      think they said those things?

1c. Amanda says that, when she made intense eye-contact with
      people, this was something quite unusual for the city. She was
      "allowed" to do this, but generally people aren't allowed to look
      at each other on the street. Do you think this is true? Why?

1d. Watch these videos of people doing other 'street-based' jobs.

      

      

   
      Why do you think people do jobs like these? Do you think there's
      a lot of job satisfaction in being a traffic warden, a human statue
      or a street magician, compared to having a 'normal' office job?
      Why or why not?

      Which of these jobs do you think would be the most satisfying?
   
      IELTS TOPIC LINK: 
      For more about the topic of Job Satisfaction, go to this page.

PART 2: MUSIC AND TWITTER   
(2:50-4:40)


PART 2 GLOSSARY

a crate: a kind of box, made from wood or plastic
a neti pot: a small device that helps you to clean your nose. They're
   popular with people who do yoga.
to pass the hat: it's when you hold a hat or another object in front of
   different people, because you want them to put money into it.
to schlep (Jewish English): to carry something heavy/difficult
a smoothie: a drink with fruit and yoghurt - like a milkshake, but a
   bit healthier
a smorgasbord (Swedish):
   1. a table full of different kinds of food, also called a 'buffet'
   2. a very wide variety of things.

touring: bands do this. It's when they travel around and do shows in
   different places.

to track sth down: to search for and find something.

to tweet: to send a message on Twitter.

UNDERSTANDING THE NARRATIVE (TRUE or FALSE)

Listen to this section of the video once, then decide whether the following statements are true or false:

  a. When Amanda's band The Dresden Dolls started becoming
      successful, she gave up her job as a human statue.

  b. She was happy that she didn't need to interact with people
      directly anymore.

  c. After their shows, Amanda and her drummer used to spend time
      with their fans.

  d. The Dresden Dolls had a strict rule that they would never ask
      anyone to help them.

  e. In every place where Dresden Dolls played a show, Amanda
      used to find local musicians and performers, and ask them to
      play outside on the street.

  f. Amanda got all the clothes she's wearing by sending messages on
      Twitter, asking for clothes.

GRAMMAR TIME!

In the video, Amanda talks about her past using "would". This is a different use of "would" to the one which we know from second conditional, and native speakers use it very often. If you would like to read about this and do some practice exercises, go to this page.

ALSO, IN CASE YOU'RE INTERESTED ...

Here's a song by Amanda's old band the Dresden Dolls:

PART 3: SURFING CROWDS AND COUCHES   
(4:40-6:40)

In this section of the video, Amanda talks about her Couch Surfing experiences. Couch Surfing is a global online movement. To participate, you have to become a member of their website. There are people from almost every country on the site, and if you're going to visit one specific country, you can find out if there are Couch Surfers living there. Then you contact them, and if they agree, you can stay in their house (usually on their couch).

You can also offer your couch to people who are plan to visit your country, so the system works two ways.

For many couch surfers, this is a lifestyle and a way of meeting people when they travel.

(Btw, the Couch Surfing website is here.)

Amanda's other theme in this section is crowd surfing. This is when you climb onto the stage at a rock concert, then jump off into the crowd. The other people in the crowd support you, and eventually you land on your feet (hopefully!).

There has been a lot of negative publicity in the media about crowd surfing, but here Amanda talks about why she loves it.


PART 3 GLOSSARY

couch: sofa
a crash pad (slang): a place to sleep for one night
a doorbell: the small thing outside your house that makes a noise when
   someone touches it, so you know they are at the door.
The Lower East Side: one of the poorer parts of New York.
a squat: a house where people live without paying. They can do this
   because the house was empty when they found it. These houses are
   often filthy and quite unsafe.

tortillas (silent "ll"): flat round bread, common in Mexico and other
    Central American countries. Filled with spicy tomato sauce, peppers,

    corn and beans, it's delicious!
undocumented immigrants: immigrants who don't have the legal
   documents they need to stay in the country where they live. They're
   staying illegally.

wireless: wi-fi

UNDERSTANDING THE NARRATIVE  

a. Amanda's band stayed with a family of immigrants from Honduras.
     Which member of the family was a fan of Amanda's music?
                         ---     the mother    the 18-year-old daughter   the family cat  

b. At night, the family
                        ---    slept in the bathroom   slept on their couches;  stayed up all night cooking breakfast  

c. While she was laying in bed that night, Amanda felt
                         ---     guilty, because the family was very poor    delighted, because the bed was so comfortable;   embarrassed, because she'd forgotten to bring pyjamas  

d. When the girl's mother said "Thank you, your music has helped my
    daughter so much", Amanda realised that
                         ---      the woman's daughter had great taste in music  &nbsp  the mother was very polite    it was a fair exchange, because each person gave something to the other  

e. When Amanda stayed at an apartment on the Lower East Side of
     New York, she was nervous because
                         ---       she was alone and she had never met the people in the apartment  &nbsp   she was with her band, and they drink a lot     she knew there was a bath in the apartment  

f.  It turned out that the couple who lived in the apartment were
                          ---        quite unfriendly and annoying  &nbsp    very friendly and welcoming      master criminals who were planning to rob a bank  

g.  Amanda thinks that couch surfing and crowd surfing are very similar,
     because both of them involve
                            ---         being a little bit crazy  &nbsp     you and other people trusting each other       staying up late at night  

VOCABULARY  

a. Talking about the different places where she has stayed while Couch
    Surfing, Amanda says that some of these places have been mansions,
    whereas others have been punk squats with one room and no toilets.
    However, the squats usually have wireless, "clearly making it the
    better option" in Amanda's opinion.

   The word "option" is closest in meaning to                          ---          place  &nbsp      mood        choice  

b. Amanda tells a story about the time when her crew pulled their van
    up to a house in Miami, where they had arranged to stay for the night
    through the Couch Surfing website. This is when they found out that
    their host was an 18-year-old girl living at home, and that her family
    were undocumented immigrants.

   - A crew is
          ---     a group of people working on something together (e.g. a film)  &nbsp   a group of very close friends   a group of people who can't stand each other  

  - A van is
       ---     a very long bicycle with several seats    a large vehicle for transporting people and things   a slang word, meaning "a Dutch person"  

  - To pull your car (or van, or motorcycle etc.) up to a house means
         ---     you come to the house, then stop &nbsp  you drive as far away from the house as possible   you go through the window of the house

  - Lastly, a host is

          ---     a house with nobody in it &nbsp   a guest in your house   the person whose house you come to as a guest

      (NOTE: pull up is a phrasal verb, and to is the preposition it collocates
      with. If you don't know what "phrasal verb" or "collocate" mean, follow
      the links. These are both important IELTS terms.)

DISCUSSION 

a. Have you ever tried.Couch Surfing? If not, would you like to try it?
    Why or why not? What would be the benefits and the drawbacks?

b. Do you think that, in staying with people she doesn't know, Amanda
    is being too trusting?

c. Amanda says that she prefers staying in small, dirty places with wi-fi
    to staying in large, luxurious places without wi-fi. Which would you
    prefer, and why?

d. Have you ever crowd-surfed? What do you think when you see
    people doing it? Does it look like they're having fun?
   
e. Amanda believes that it's important for a performer to trust his or
    her audience, and that's the main reason she crowd surfs. What do
    you think of this idea?
   
f. Can you think of other activities which can only succeed if people
   trust each other? What are these activities, and why is trust so
   important if you want to do them?



PART 4: ???????   
(6:40-?:??)


PART 4 GLOSSARY

to burn a CD: to copy files onto a CD
Napster: one of the first websites to offer music for free download.
    The band Metallica got very angry about this, and they took
    Napster to court. The case became famous (and Metallica lost a lot
    of fans ... hahahaa!)
to tank (slang): to fail very badly
   ("The music industry is tanking" = it was successful before, but now
    it's a disaster.)

In this section of the video, Amanda talks about her Couch Surfing experiences. Couch Surfing is a global movement. To participate, you have to join a website. On the site, there are people all around the world who invite you to stay in their house (usually on their couch). For many couch surfers, this is a lifestyle and a way of meeting people when they travel.

(Btw, the Couch Surfing website is here.)




ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

PART 1: VOCABULARY

a:  - self-employed = you work for yourself, not for a company.
     - a bride = a woman getting married
     - eight-foot = 240cm tall. (One foot = 30cm)
     - make a living = work, have a profession, make money to live
        ("What do you do for a living?" = "What's your job?")

b:  - intense eye-contact = looking with strong emotions 
        ("She stared intensely at me, and I couldn't look away.")
           NOTE: "intense" has many meanings, depending on the context.
     - prolonged (adj) = something continues for longer than usual
         ("There was a prolonged silence when she entered the room.") 
     - a longing = a feeling that you want sth very much 

c:  - profound = deep and important 
        ("This new brain research offers profound insights into human nature.")

     - an encounter = a meeting / a new experience
        ("On our first encounter, we didn't get along very well.")
        ("I had never before encountered such extreme cold as I experienced in Astana.")



PART 2 TRUE OR FALSE

a:  true    b: false    c: true
d: false    e: true    f. false

PART 3: UNDERSTANDING THE NARRATIVE

a:  The 18-year-old daughter was a fan.
b. The family slept on their couches.
c. Amanda felt guilty, because the family was very poor.
d. Amanda realised that it was a fair exchange, because she gave the 18-year-old girl
    her music, and the girl gave her a place to stay.
e. She was nervous because she was alone and she didn't know the people who 
    lived in the apartment.
f. The people turned out to be very friendly and welcoming.
g. Couch Surfing and crowd-surfing both involve you and other people trusting 
    each other. 


  
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