Reading and comprehension

1 Look at the definition. Then discuss the questions below in pairs or small groups.

fit in (phrasal verb): to feel that you belong to a particular group and are accepted by that group

1. How important is it to fit in with other people?
2. What different groups do you belong to? Think about the areas below and add groups to the diagram. Then compare with another student.

• your family life ▶ your social life ▶ your village / town / area / country
• your school life ▶ your interests

3. Can you think of any reasons why it might not always be a good idea to fit in with others?

2 Read the beginning of an article. Then complete the tasks on page 19.

MODERN LIVING | LIFESTYLE

• If you put the words fitting in and belonging into an Internet search engine, you'll find that you get very different results. Nearly all the lifestyle advice and self-help sites seem to agree that a feeling of belonging is unquestionably 'a good thing', something that we all need if we want to be healthy, happy people.

In contrast, fitting in is almost always presented as something we need to avoid. One quotation (from the children's writer and artist Dr Seuss) that often turns up is this one: 'Why try to fit in when you were born to stand out?' The implication is clear: fitting in is a bad idea, standing out or being different is good.

1 'Nearly all the lifestyle advice and self-help sites seem to agree ...'

1. What is someone's lifestyle? ___
2. What kind of advice do websites like this usually offer? ___

2 'A feeling of belonging is unquestionably “a good thing” ...'

1. Complete the table to show how the word unquestionable / unquestionably is made.

2. If something is unquestionable, what is it impossible to do? ___
3. If something (e.g. a book, a piece of music or a painter) is described as incomparable, what does it mean? ___

3 Replace the words in brackets with phrasal verbs from the text.

1. He often (arrives or appears) late for meetings. ___
2. We should use a different colour to make this sentence (look different from the others). ___

The phrasal verbs are not used in exactly the same way in the sentences as in the text. How are the two meanings connected?

A They refer to similar situations, but the meaning is different.

B They have similar meanings, but refer to different situations.

4 'The implication is clear ...'

The noun implication means 'hidden suggestion' and comes from the verb imply. Match these verbs with their meanings. Then add them to the table, with their nouns.

1. simplify a what you do to get a job
2. apply b increase in number
3. multiply c make something easier

3 Discuss the questions in pairs or small groups.

1. How is fitting in different from belonging?
2. What do you think Dr Seuss means when he says people are born to stand out?
3. Why might some people, especially young people, not want to stand out from others?

1 Look at the picture. Then discuss the questions in pairs or small groups.

1. How do you think the person at the front is feeling?
2. What do you think the others are doing or saying?
3. What reasons might there be why this person doesn't fit in?
4. Can you remember the quotation from Dr Seuss from Period 1? How does it relate to the picture?

2 Read the second part of the article you started in Period 1. Then complete the tasks below.

• A lot of young people might disagree with Dr Seuss. For most teenagers, it seems, standing out and not being accepted as 'normal' is horribly embarrassing. They put great effort into being accepted by other teenagers. This will often take the form of liking the right kind of music, wearing the right clothes, or even having the right kind of mobile phone. In more extreme cases, a young person might deliberately choose not to work hard at school and get good marks, or be led into bad habits.

This feeling is something that most people grow out of. They gradually learn to be confident about who they are. They realise that being like everyone else isn't such a good idea and that standing out can be an advantage. After all, when you think about it, to stand out is to be outstanding, which is definitely a positive word: when someone is described as an outstanding actor / writer / business person / leader, it's high praise. The process can take quite a long while though. As the British TV star Clare Balding once said: 'Fitting in is boring. But it takes you nearly your whole life to work that out.'

Fitting in is not the same as belonging. The need to belong to a group or community goes back to the earliest days of human societies, and there are good reasons for it. Life in the past was hard, with dangers all around, and people acting together with a common purpose had a much better chance of surviving than a lone individual. In fact, being left out of or cut off from the group would more than likely lead to death. Obviously, the consequences are not so disastrous in modern societies, but the need survives. Many scientific studies have shown that people who don't feel that they belong to a group are more likely to become ill than those who are part of a community, and don't live as long.

1 '... standing out and not being accepted as “normal” is horribly embarrassing.'

1. Why do you think the writer puts the word normal in inverted commas?
2. When you are embarrassed, you feel as if everyone is looking at you. What kind of things or situations might people find embarrassing?

2. '... a young person might deliberately choose not to work hard at school ...'

What does deliberately mean?

A on purpose B freely

3 'This feeling is something that most people grow out of.'

1. The phrasal verb grow out of (something) means

A to gradually become too big.

B to lose a habit or feeling as you get older.

C to be made or produced from something.

2. Can you think of other examples of things that children usually grow out of?

4 '... when someone is described as an outstanding actor / writer / business person / leader, it's high praise.'

1. What does outstanding mean?

A unusual or strange B better than most others

2. Give real examples of people you believe are outstanding leaders, writers, musicians or sports people. What makes them outstanding?

5. 'The process can take quite a long while though.'

A process is a number of events leading to a result, which takes time to happen. What process is the writer referring to here? ___

6 '... being left out of or cut off from the group would more than likely lead to death.'

1. The two phrasal verbs used in the sentence are similar but not exactly the same. Match them with these meanings.

a to _ something or someone _ (= to not include)

b to _ something or someone _ (= stop communicating with)

2. What prepositions are used with each one if we want to add an object?

a leave out ___ a group

b cut off ___ a group

7 Find fixed phrases in the third paragraph with these meanings.

1. shared aim ___
2. single person ___
3. almost certainly ___

8 The verb survive is used twice (lines 36, 42), with slightly different meanings. Find the two uses and say which one means:

1. to remain the same ___
2. to continue living ___

9. '... people who don't feel that they belong to a group are more likely to become ill than those who are part of a community, and they don't live as long.'

What does the highlighted word they refer to in this sentence?

A people who are part of a community

B people who don't belong to a group

10. Complete the explanation. Then compare your answer with another student.

Fitting in means trying to (1) ___

___

This is often seen as a bad thing to do because it stops you from being yourself.

Belonging, on the other hand, is the feeling that (2) ___

This is something we all need.

1 Look at the picture. Then discuss the questions below in pairs or small groups.

1. Have you heard the phrase 'the black sheep of the family'? What do you think it means?
2. Is the same phrase used in Arabic, or something similar?

2 Read the text about 'black sheep'. Then complete the tasks on page 23.

In English, the phrase 'black sheep of the family' is used to describe someone who doesn't live his or her life the way the rest of the family expects them to. People like this must be common, because many other languages, mostly European, have exactly the same idiom*. Other languages, like Russian, talk about someone being a 'white crow' (crows being birds that are nearly always black).

Real black sheep are rather rare. From a farmer's point of view, black wool** couldn't be changed into different colours, so it was seen as worthless. As a result, farmers used to be disappointed when, by chance, their white sheep sometimes had a baby with black wool. So if a family had a 'black sheep', it was definitely thought to be something undesirable. Nowadays, though, the phrase has lost some of its negative meaning. This is probably because people don't worry as much as they used to if someone is a bit different from normal. In fact, some people even think of it as an advantage: it means that the person has a more exciting life than most others, who just follow the rules and don't take risks.

Among creative people, it isn't unusual to find those who were regarded as black sheep. Being an outstanding artist or poet seems to require a different way of looking at the world. Also, independent and strong-minded women, at least in the past, have tended to be black sheep, simply because the social rules about what was an acceptable lifestyle were stronger for women. In any field, people like this are outstanding because they stand out from the crowd.

One example is the ⁦19th⁩ century English writer Mary Shelley. Her mother died when she was young, and it was the daughter of her father's second wife who received an education. Mary herself was left on her own and began writing stories and poems. She travelled to Europe and was cut off from her family for some time after this. Two years later, while in Switzerland, Mary, along with several friends, including well-known writers, were amusing themselves one rainy afternoon by making up horror stories. Of all the stories produced that day, Mary's is the one people still remember. Although she wrote several other books, the story of Frankenstein is by far her most famous work. It is known all over the world and has been made into a film many times.

• idiom = an expression that has a non-literal meaning

** wool = the hair of a sheep

1. Match the headings with the paragraphs in the text. (There is one more title than you need.)

A Where the meaning comes from paragraph ___

B Why some people become black sheep paragraph ___

C Some examples of black sheep paragraph ___

D The story behind a popular book paragraph ___

E A definition of the phrase paragraph ___

2 Complete the sentences with a maximum of two words from the text.

1. The idea of being a 'black sheep' seems to be quite ___ in European countries.
2. Several languages have an ___ similar to the English phrase 'black sheep of the family'.
3. In real life, however, black sheep are not common; in fact, they are ___.
4. Black wool is _, so farmers regard it as _.
5. The modern meaning of 'black sheep' isn't as ___ as it used to be.
6. The life of 'black sheep' may be more exciting because they are more likely to ___.
7. ___ people tend to be black sheep as they see the world differently from others.
8. Women have sometimes been seen as black sheep because there were stricter ideas about what it was ___ for them to do.
9. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is the most famous of several ___ that were made up one afternoon.

3 Answer the questions.

1. How has the meaning of the phrase black sheep changed nowadays?
2. How old was Mary Shelley when she first made up the story of Frankenstein?
3. What do you know about the story?
4. What might be surprising about the fact that a story like this was written by a nineteen-year-old girl in the nineteenth century?

3 Discuss the questions in pairs or small groups. Then compare your ideas with others.

1. Do you know any other examples of people who could be described as black sheep?
2. Can you think of any other idioms in Arabic that relate to the topic of belonging to groups and fitting in (or not fitting in)?
3. Can you translate them into English?

In Period ⁦3 you⁩ looked at the idiom 'the black sheep of the family'. If you find an idiom in something you are reading, you may need to guess what it means. Sometimes this is easy. For example, what does the underlined phrase in this sentence mean?

Everyone in the office was so friendly that I immediately felt at home.

Sometimes, though, you will need to think about what the words themselves mean (the literal meaning) and then decide what they mean in the context (the non-literal or idiomatic meaning). For example, what do the underlined phrases in these sentences mean?

We can usually accept the way he behaves, but what he has done now crosses the line.

(What kind of line is referred to?)

He doesn't just follow the herd; he thinks for himself and does what he believes is right.

(A herd is a group of animals like cows or sheep; what or who are the herd here?)

1 Look at three more idioms. Then match them with their meanings. In what situations do you think they might be used?

to feel like a fish out of water to stick out like a sore thumb to swim against the tide

a to think or act differently from others ___

b to feel that you are not in your natural place ___

c to look very different from other things or people ___

2 Complete the sentences with the idioms in Activity 1. (You may need to change the form of the verb.)

1. Everyone else agreed with the plan. He seemed to be the only one who thought there was a problem with it. He didn't say anything in the end because it's hard to ___
2. All the other people at the party were experts in their fields. I couldn't join in their conversations because I didn't understand what they were talking about. I ___
3. She was late and had to go to the restaurant straight from work, in her normal clothes. When she got there, she saw that the others were all dressed in their best evening dresses. She was sure she ___

3 Look at the pictures. Then match the beginnings and endings of the proverbs.

1. When in Rome, a flock* together.
2. You can't put a square peg** b do as the Romans do.
3. Birds of a feather c into a round hole.

• = collect in a (large) group

** = small piece of wood

4 Match each proverb in Activity ⁦3 with⁩ the situation it might be used to describe.

1. I don't really like tea, but I used to drink it at 'tea time' when I was England. ___
2. You can tell he's not a good person by looking at the kinds of people who are his friends. ___
3. She loved art and poetry, but her father wanted her to be a doctor. She tried, but it didn't work, and now she's a well-known painter. ___

5 Discuss the questions in pairs or small groups.

1. Do you agree with what the proverbs are saying about life?
2. Are there any similar proverbs in Arabic?