On the surface
Where is this passage set? – canada
What is the temperature? – minus twenty degrees
How high up are they? – 300 feet
How fast was bear travelling down the hill? – 40mph
How does Simon (the camera man) descend? – On his wooden sledge
What went wrong? – Simon and his heavy wooden sledge wiped him out
Discovering Techniques
- find an example of each of the following parts of speech from the sentence below:
a) Personal pronoun – I or My
b) Noun – Mountain
c) Abstract noun – nimbly
d) Adjective – Deep
e) Verb – Drive
f) Adverb – Mountain
g) Preposition – into
2. Several similes are used in this passage to help create the atmosphere. List 3 of them
a) and
b) with
c) into
3. Why are there several very short sentences beginning with ‘I’?
Because he’s kind of explaining on an intense level and there’s a lot going on
Search and think
- Why doesn’t Bear notice the beautiful day and surroundings? – because he’s unusually nervous
- What does Bear blame Everest for? – old frosty injuries
- Describe the way Bear travels down the mountain and stops? -he falls down the mountain and drives the axe into the ground to stop.
- Bear says he was ‘unusually nervous’. Copy down several other sentences that show his nervousness.
- ‘I don’t really notice’
- ‘I only like to use it sparingly, like now’
- ‘it is like a freight train’
Hidden depths
- What does this short article tell you about the man ‘Bear Grills’? Would it be a good opening