Read this text very carefully and do the Written Comprehension exercice. 

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Written Comprehension

Britain’s favourite children’s author

For most people, Roald Dahl was the father of British children’s literature. He wrote 50 books that have been translated into 34 languages. Dahl sold about 100 million books, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Matilda are the most famous. Dahl was born in Wales in 1916. But not many people know that Dahl’s parents were from Norway. As a boy, he spoke Norwegian and listened to fairy stories from his mother. This folklore helped him develop his imagination and write books.

When Roald Dahl was a boy, he liked to play jokes like throwing water bombs at people. At eight, Dahl was punished for putting a dead rat in a jar of sweets! This juvenile sense of humour influenced his stories. When Dahl was at school, Cadbury’s chocolate company sent chocolates for the pupils to test. Dahl wanted to invent a new chocolate bar that would impress Mr Cadbury. This gave him the idea for his book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

At the beginning of the Second World War, Roald Dahl became a fighter pilot in Africa but his plane crashed and he nearly died. He wrote about this accident in a story. Later, he went to the USA and worked in Washington DC as a diplomat and secret agent. 

He started writing children’s books in the 1950s. His stories always presented children as the goodies and adults as the baddies. For example, in Matilda, horrible Miss Trunchbull threw children out of the window! Dahl had five children and he knew what they liked: horrible, disgusting details that made them laugh. He wrote his stories in a small hut at the back of his garden and always tried them on his children. He also kept hundreds of notebooks where he wrote all of his ideas before he forgot them.

He also wrote screenplays (like a James Bond film), autobiographies and short-stories. Quentin Blake illustrated many of his books. Blake had a special style that was perfect for Dahl’s funny stories. 

Roald Dahl died on November, 23rd 1990. His family gave him a “Viking” funeral. He was buried with some of his favourite objects: pencils, sport equipment and of course, chocolate!

Written Comprehension

1. Vocabulary: Find in the text the English or the French equivalents for the following words: 

a. un pot, les bons et les méchants, scénario, cabane         b. chocolate bar, impress, plane, laugh

2. Find 5 titles for the 5 paragraphs.    

3. Are the following sentences right or wrong? Quote the text to justify your answer. 

a. Dahl wasn’t born in Great Britain.

b. He hated chocolate.

c. He wrote on a computer.

d. He wrote and illustrated his books.

e. He was 74 years old when he died.

4. Answer the following questions. Make sentences. 

1. Was he a calm boy?
2. What different jobs did he have?
3. How many books did he sell?
4. Did he also write for adults? Explain.
5. What happened on September 13th 2016?

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