PROGRESS TEST 1 (UNITS 1–3) Progress test 1 Period 1 Reading 1
Practice
1 Read the text about film industries around the world. Match the titles with the correct paragraphs. (There is one more title than you need.)
A
An important provider of jobs paragraph _____
B
A common idea, but wrong paragraph _____
C
National industries encouraged by law paragraph _____
D
Small but strong paragraph _____
E
Why Hollywood is so successful paragraph _____
F
Much more than the rest paragraph _____
1
What is the world’s biggest film industry? Most people would probably guess that it’s the United States, particularly Hollywood. Globalisation, the argument goes, has allowed the large American film companies, with the vast amounts of money they have available, to spread all over the world, killing off local film industries. In fact, film industries around the world are far from dead or dying, and the real picture is quite different.
2
The answer to the question depends partly on how you define the term ‘biggest film industry’, but of the several answers available, some would surprise a lot of people. In terms of the number of films being made, there is unquestionably one clear winner: in 2011, India created over 1,000 feature films and 1,500 short films, a far greater number than any other country. Most people have heard of Bollywood, the name made up because the centre of film production was Bombay (now called Mumbai), but in fact the industry covers nine different regions producing their own films in sixteen different languages.
3
The country that makes the second highest number of films is not America but Nigeria in West Africa, which produces nearly 50 films every week. Nigerian films have been made since the 1960s, but the growth of cheaper digital technology has transformed it into the second biggest employer in the country after the government.
4
If the question is judged in terms of the amount of money made, however, the USA does come out on top, followed by China, which overtook Japan in 2013. One reason is of course the huge audience, plus the fact that the Chinese government has put a limit of 20 per year on the number of new foreign films that can be shown. The Korean government has a similar approach, ordering that at least 40% of films shown have to be Korean-made.
5
Local film industries, in fact, are growing all over the world, from Iran to South America and from Palestine to Vietnam. They may not be as large as, say, Nigeria, but the same cheaper film-making technology now available makes it possible for them to keep going and do well. It seems that many people have underestimated the power of local film industries to fight back against the globalisation of film entertainment.
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Practice
2 Decide whether the statements are TRUE or FALSE.
1
It is easy to say which country has the biggest film industry. TRUE FALSE
2
Film production in India is spread around the country. TRUE FALSE
3
Until quite recently, the Japanese film industry was the second most profitable in the world. TRUE FALSE
4
Films are more expensive to make than they used to be. TRUE FALSE
5
Many countries in the world have successful film industries. TRUE FALSE
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