Activities and Notes at the English Department of EOI Getafe

http://www.eoigetafe.es/

900-word Cloze Test on Bram Stoker, with plenty of distractors!

Total Time: 45 minutes. You can’t use a pencil, nor an eraser or white-out liquid. Just
cross out things if needed and write lightly when jotting down possible answers.

1. Skim it all (the words in the box and the complete text, and say “gap” wherever there is a gap).
How long did it take you? …………………………………
2. Skim the article again, trying to predict the answers, which means, trying to fill in the gaps without
using the words in the box (perhaps you will not guess the word, but you will realize if you need a
verb, a particle, a name…), and underlining key words whenever that can help you answer.
Time: …………………………………….

TIP: Gaps are numbered. Use the numbers in the box too (write lightly). Write candidate words on the
margins. Follow the Onion Approach – it’s better to go through things more times, than to spend far too
long in intensive reading. The more times you read the text, the more acquainted you get with the text
and consequently, the more you gradually understand it, like it happens in Spanish with difficult texts.

3. Scanning 1. Look at the words in the box and scan your text to secure some of the easiest answers.
Time: …………………………….
4. Scanning 1’. If you are unsure (not many answers to copy), repeat the procedure, so you can fill in
some of the Answer Slots. (How many times did you do it? ………………..)
5. Scanning 2. Deal with the most difficult parts, without reading the complete text, by focusing in the
more difficult paragraph, but keeping in mind the complete thing.
Time: ………………………………… (How many times did you do it? ………………..)
6. Fill in the Answer Box. Proofread the spelling and read the complete text again with your answers!
(Proofreading in two steps. Repeat as many times as necessary).
Time: ……………………………….. (How many times did you do it? ………………..)

ADDED ARTICLES AS AS A AS AN ASSISTED ATTENDED BEST BETTER BY BY CLIPPINGS

CLOSER CLOSEST COMPLAINT CONTRACTED DEFEND EMPLOYED EMPLOYER FOR HEALING HIRED

HOSTING IN INTRODUCED INVOLVED JUDGEMENT LIKE NUMBER OF ON OTHER OTHERS

QUANTITY RECOVERY RESEARCHING RUMOURED RUMOURING SCATTERED SEARCHING STAYING

SUED SUIT SUPPLEMENTED SUPPORT THAT WELL WHICH

BRAM STOKER

Abraham "Bram" Stoker (8 November 1847 – 20 April 1912) was an Irish writer of novels and short stories,
who is …[1]… known today for his 1897 horror novel Dracula. During his lifetime, he was …[2]… known for
being the personal assistant of the actor Henry Irving and the business manager of the Lyceum Theatre in
London, …[3]… Irving owned.

Early life. He was born in 1847 at 15 Marino Crescent, located today in Fairview, but then in Clontarf,
Dublin, Ireland. His parents were Abraham Stoker (1799-1876) and the feminist Charlotte Mathilda Blake
Thornely (1818-1901). Stoker was the third of seven children. Abraham and Charlotte were members of
the Clontarf Church of Ireland parish and …[4]…. the parish church (St. John the Baptist located on
Seafield Road West) with their children, who were both baptised there. Stoker was bed-ridden until he
started school at the age of seven, when he made a complete …[5]…. Of this time, Stoker wrote, "I was
naturally thoughtful, and the leisure of long illness gave opportunity for many thoughts which were fruitful
according to their kind in later years." After his recovery, he became a normal young man, even excelling
…[6]…. athlete (he was named University Athlete) at Trinity College, Dublin , which he attended from
1864 to 1870. He graduated with honours …[7]… mathematics. He was auditor of the College Historical
Society and president of the University Philosophical Society, where his first paper was on
"Sensationalism…"
 Activities and Notes at the English Department of EOI Getafe
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Early career. In 1876, while …[8]… …[9]… civil servant in Dublin, Stoker wrote a non-fiction book (The
Duties of …, published 1879) and became the theatre critic …[10]… the newspaper Dublin Evening Mail. In
December 1876, he gave a favourable review of the actor Henry Irving's performance …[11]… Hamlet at
the Theatre Royal in Dublin. Irving read the review and invited Stoker for dinner at the Shelbourne Hotel,
where he was …[12]… After that they became friends. He also wrote stories, and in 1872 "The Crystal Cup"
was published …[13]… the London Society, followed by "The Chain of Destiny" in 4 parts in The Shamrock.

Lyceum Theatre and later career. In 1878 Stoker married Florence Balcombe, a celebrated beauty whose
former suitor was Oscar Wilde. The couple moved to London, where Stoker became acting-manager and
then business manager of Irving's Lyceum Theatre, a post he held for 27 years. On 31 December 1879,
Bram and Florence's only child was born, a son that they christened Irving Noel Thornley Stoker. The
collaboration with Irving was very important for Stoker and through him he became …[14].… in London's
high society, where he met, among …[15]… notables, James Abbott McNeill Whistler and Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle (to whom he was distantly related). In the course of Irving's tours, Stoker got the chance to travel
around the world. In the mid 1890s, Stoker is …[16]… to have become a member of the Hermetic Order of
the Golden Dawn, though there is no concrete evidence to …[17]…. this claim. One of Stoker's …[18]….
friends was J.W. Brodie-Innis, a major figure in the Order, and Stoker himself …[19]…. Pamela Coleman
Smith, as an artist at the Lyceum Theater.

The first edition cover of Dracula. Stoker …[20]…. his income by writing novels; the best known being
the vampire tale Dracula which was published in 1897. Before writing Dracula, Stoker spent several years
…[21]…. European folklore and stories …[22]… vampires. Dracula is an epistolary novel, written as
collection of diary entries, telegrams, and letters from the characters, as well as fictional …[23]…. from
the Whitby and London newspapers. Stoker's inspirations for the story, in addition to Whitby, may have
included a visit to Slains Castle in Aberdeenshire, and a visit to the crypts of St. Michan's Church in Dublin.

Death. After suffering a ……[24]….of strokes Bram Stoker died at No 26 St George's Square in 1912. Some
biographers attribute the cause of death to tertiary syphilis. He was cremated and his ashes placed in a
display urn at Golders Green Crematorium. After Irving Noel Stoker's death in 1961, his ashes were ……[25]
….to that urn. The original plan had been to keep his parents' ashes together, but after Florence Stoker's
death her ashes were …[26]….at the Gardens of Rest.

Posthumous. The short story collection Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Stories was published in 1914 by
Stoker's widow Florence Stoker. The first film adaptation of Dracula was named Nosferatu. It was directed
by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau and starred Max Schreck as Count Orlock. Nosferatu was produced while
Florence Stoker, Bram Stoker's widow and literary executrix, was still alive. Represented by the attorneys
of the British Incorporated Society of Authors, she eventually ……[27]….the filmmakers. Her chief legal
complaint was that she had been neither asked for permission for the adaptation nor paid any royalty. The
case dragged ……[28]….for some years, with Mrs. Stoker demanding the destruction of the negative and all
prints of the film. The ……[29]….was finally resolved in the widow's favour in July 1925. Some copies of the
film survived, however and the film has become ……[30]….known.

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