Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions.
Pete Watson looks like the biggest, sweetest teddy bear you ever saw. It is only when he opens his mouth that you notice the missing front teeth. Watson i s a three-time world champion wrestler turned author. He was adored by fans because he was different: while other wrestlers were supreme athletes, he was just a hulk who knew how to take a hit. You could throw as many chairs as you liked at Pete Watson, you could smack him repeatedly, but he wouldn’t go down.
After two autobiographies and a series of children’s stories, he has just written a brilliant first novel: a word of immense power and subtlety, likely to gain a wide readership. At its simplest, it is about a boy and his dad getting together after a lifetime apart, though there is more to it than that. Was he inspired by anyone he knew? The father, he says, is based on guys he met on the road, wrestlers, friends of his, who appeared to be leading exciting lives, but deep down were pretty miserable.
Watson does not come from traditional wrestling stock. He grew up in Long Island, New York. His father was an athletic director with a PhD, his mother a physical education teacher with two master’s degrees - one in literature, the other in Russian history. He was a big boy, bullied for his size. One day his neighbour had a go at him, and for the first time Watson realised he could use his weight and size instead of feeling awkward about it. It was a turning point.
At college, he did a degree in communication studies. Meanwhile, he was learning the ropes of professional wrestling. Did his parents try to dissuade him? ‘No. They were just really insistent that I finished college. I am pretty sure they thought I’d get hurt and quit wrestling.’ But he didn’t.
Nowadays, his time is dedicated to family and books - his next novel is about boy wrestlers living on the same block, and he is also writing more children’s stories. He does not think this life is so different from wrestling. ‘Wrestling is all about characters,’ he says. ‘So when my fans hear I’ve written a novel, I don’t get the sense that they feel I’ve abandoned them.’
(Adapted from FCE Exam Essentials)
