Cover of the textbook English File Advanced - Student's Book

The key answer of exercise 5

The key to exercise solutions in chapter 2A - Do you remember…? for the textbook English File Advanced - Student's Book with authors Christina Latham-Koenig, Clive Oxenden, Jerry Lambert and Kate Chomacki from Oxford University Press

Question

  1. Listen to Part 1 of a radio programme about early childhood memories. Answer the questions for each speaker 1-3.
  2. Look at some questions you're going to hear in Part 2 of the programme, an interview about research on first memories. Discuss them with a partner.
  3. -
  4. Listen again. Why does the presenter mention these things?
  5. -
  6. Now listen to Part 3. Was your prediction correct? What happened many years later?

Answer

a)

Speaker 1

  • Age: about three
  • Memory: letting go of a balloon outside
  • Emotion(s): devastated, heartbroken

Speaker 2

  • Age: three or four
  • Memory: having a book read to her
  • Emotion(s): annoyed

Speaker 3

  • Age: two and a half
  • Memory: breaking a Christmas decoration
  • Emotion(s): resentful

b)

  1. Between the ages of two and four
  2. Before that age, children don't have a clear sense of their own identity, they don't have the language skills, and the part of the brain needed for memories isn't fully formed.
  3. Strong emotions, like happiness, unhappiness, pain, surprise, fear and events related to these things, like the birth of a brother or sister, a death, or a family visit, or a festive celebration
  4. Because they tend to be family stories that children incorporate into their memory.

d)

  1. Around 40% of people say they remember this.
  2. A child seeing him- / herself in a mirror doesn't realize that the person is him / her.
  3. A child can't have a memory of a past event before he / she has learned to use the past tense.
  4. Evolutionary theory suggests that human memory is linked to emotions / feelings which are related to protecting yourself.
  5. First memories tend to be visual, rather than smells or sounds.
  6. If your mother tells you about the first word you ever said, that becomes something you think is a memory.

f)

The story: He was sitting in his pram as a one-year-old baby. A man tried to kidnap him. He remembered his nanny fighting to save him. His parents gave her a reward (a watch). Years later, Piaget's nanny confessed that she had made the story up.

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