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Last updated at 14:04 GMT, Wednesday, 18 December 2013

The icing on the cake

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Report and vocabulary

Transcript:

A slice of life in Dresden.

For 20 years, the German city has been holding a festival dedicated to its traditional Christmas fruit cake, the 'stollen'.

Cutting it was no piece of cake. Several bakers needed sharp knives and determination to make sure everybody got their share of the 4,246kg treat.

In the end, only crumbs were left. But people with a sweet tooth need not worry. There's always next year.

slice

a flat, thin piece

dedicated

intended for a particular purpose

piece of cake

easy

determination

resolve

sweet tooth

a liking for sweet food

Exercise

Use one of the words or phrases below to complete each of these sentences from news reports.

Note that you may have to change the form of a word to complete the sentence correctly.

slice/ dedicated/ piece of cake/ determination/ sweet tooth

1. "Our universities want to give places to students with the qualifications, potential and __________ to succeed, irrespective of their background. That's why we are pumping millions more into outreach programmes."

2. "Everyone was so motivated," said Dr Dusko Ehrlich. "To have such an exciting project to run - it's a __________. The work went much faster than we expected."

3. The US SpaceX company has announced its intention to take a big __________ of the market for launching the world's TV and telecoms satellites.

4. The monks also had a very __________ and even ate sweet porridge served with meat. Desserts were often soaked in honey and included fritters and nutmeg cookies.

5. "It's essential that all staff receive support and training in the administration of IV fluids and hospitals should ensure time is __________ to this," she added."

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Exercise

Answers

How did you do?

1

determination

2

piece of cake

3

slice

4

sweet tooth

5

dedicated

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