WARM-UP VIDEO FOR PAST SIMPLE (IRREGULAR VERBS)

Instructions. Listen to the interview and type phrases with irregular verbs in Past Simple.

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Exercise. Complete each gap with suitable words and expressions you hear from the video.

And it ended up being so much fun that I decided I could pursue doing more of these things. The next one is (1) ………….. myself in a block of ice for three days and three nights in New York City. That one was way more difficult than I had expected. The one after that, (2) ………….. on top of a hundred-foot pillar for 36 hours. (3) ………….. to hallucinate so hard that the buildings that were behind me started to look like big animal heads. So, next (4) ………….. to London. In London I lived in a glass box for 44 days with nothing but water. (5) ………….. , for me, one of the most difficult things I'd ever done, but (6) ………….. also the most beautiful. There was so many skeptics, especially the press in London, that they started flying cheeseburgers on helicopters around my box to tempt me. (Laughter) So, (7) ………….. very validated when the New England Journal of Medicine actually used the research for science. My next pursuit was I wanted to see how long I could go without breathing, As a young magician, I was obsessed with Houdini and his underwater challenges. So, (8) ………….. , early on, competing against the other kids, seeing how long I could stay underwater while (9) ………….. up and down to breathe, you know, five times, while I stayed under on one breath. By the time I was a teenager, I was able to hold my breath for three minutes and 30 seconds. I would later find out that was Houdini's personal record. In 1987 (10) ………….. of a story about a boy that (11) ………….. through ice and was trapped under a river. He was underneath, not breathing for 45 minutes. When the rescue workers (12) ………….. , they resuscitated him and there was no brain damage. His core temperature had dropped to 77 degrees. if the boy could survive without breathing for that long, there must be a way that I could do it. So, (13) ………….. with a top neurosurgeon. And I asked him, how long is it possible to go without breathing, like how long could I go without air? And (14) ………….. to me that anything over six minutes you have a serious risk of hypoxic brain damage. So, (15) ………….. that as a challenge, basically. (Laughter) My first try, I figured that I could do something similar, In my first attempt to hold my breath, I couldn't even last a minute. So, I realized that was completely not going to work. (16) ………….. to talk to a doctor friend -- and I asked him, "How could I do that?" "I want to hold my breath for a really long time. How could it be done?" And (17) ………….., "David, you're a magician, create the illusion of not breathing, it will be much easier." (Laughter) So, (18) ………….. with this idea of creating a rebreather, with a CO2 scrubber, (19) ………….. basically a tube from Home Depot, with a balloon duct-taped to it, that (20) ………….. we could put inside of me, and somehow be able to circulate the air and rebreathe with this thing in me. There is a chemical that's called perflubron. And it's so high in oxygen levels that in theory you could breathe it. So, (21) ………….. my hands on that chemical, filled the sink up with it, and (22) ………….. my face in the sink and tried to breathe that in, (23) ………….. really impossible. It's basically like trying to breathe, as a doctor said, while having an elephant standing on your chest. Then I started thinking, would it be possible to hook up a heart/lung bypass machine and have a surgery where (24) ………….. a tube going into my artery, and then appear to not breathe while they were oxygenating my blood? (25) ………….. another insane idea, obviously. Then (26) ………….. about the craziest idea of all the ideas: to actually do it. (Laughter) You know, because they go down for four minutes on one breath. And when I was researching pearl divers, I found the world of free-diving. (27) ………….. the most amazing thing that I ever discovered, pretty much. There is many different aspects to free-diving. There is depth records, where people go as deep as they can. So, I learned never to move. And I learned how to slow my heart rate down. (28) ………….. remain perfectly still and just relax and think that I wasn't in my body, and just control that. And then I learned how to purge. We'll say big-boned. (Laughter) (29) ………….. drop 50 pounds in three months. So, everything that (30) ………….. into my body, I considered as medicine. Every bit of food was exactly what (31) ………….. for its nutritional value. (32) ………….. really small controlled portions throughout the day. And I started to really adapt my body. [Individual results may vary] live on prime-time television. The world record was eight minutes and 58 seconds, held by Tom Sietas, that guy with the whale lungs (33) ………….. you about. I assumed that I could put a water tank at Lincoln Center and if I stayed there a week not eating, I was completely wrong. I entered the sphere a week before the scheduled air date. And (34) ………….. everything seemed to be on track. Two days before my big breath-hold attempt, for the record, the producers of my television special (35) ………….. that just watching somebody holding their breath, and almost drowning, is too boring for television. (Laughter) So, (36) ………….. add handcuffs, while holding my breath, to escape from. (37) ………….. a critical mistake. Because of the movement, I was wasting oxygen. And by seven minutes I had gone into these awful convulsions. By 7:08, I started to black out. And by seven minutes and 30 seconds, (38) ………….. pull my body out and bring me back. I had failed on every level. (Laughter) I decided to call Oprah. (Laughter) (39) ………….. her that I wanted to up the ante and hold my breath longer than any human being ever had. (40) ………….. a different record. (41) ………….. a pure O2 static apnea record that Guinness had set the world record at 13 minutes. So, basically you breathe pure O2 first, oxygenating your body, flushing out CO2, (Laughter ends) In January of '08, Oprah (42) ………….. me four months to prepare and train. So, I would sleep in a hypoxic tent every night. A hypoxic tent is a tent that simulates altitude at 15,000 feet. your brain is completely wiped out. My first attempt on pure O2,I was able to go up to 15 minutes. So, (43) ………….. a pretty big success. The neurosurgeon pulled me out of the water because in his mind, at 15 minutes your brain is done, you're brain dead. So, he pulled me up, and I was fine. There was one person there that was definitely not impressed. (44) ………….. my ex-girlfriend. While I was breaking the record underwater for the first time, she was sifting through my Blackberry, checking all my messages. (Laughter ends) I then announced that I was going to go for Sietas' record, publicly. And what he did in response, is he (45) ………….. on Regis and Kelly, and (46) ………….. his old record. Then his main competitor (47) ………….. out and (48) ………….. his record. So, he suddenly pushed the record up to16 minutes and 32 seconds. (49) ………….. three minutes longer than I had prepared. (50) ………….. longer than the record. I wanted to get the Science Times to document this. I wanted to get them to do a piece on it. I walked into the New York Times offices and did card tricks to everybody. (Laughter) So, I don't know if (51) ………….. the magic or the lure of the Cayman Islands, but John Tierney (52) ………….. down and did a piece on the seriousness of breath-holding. While he was there, I tried to impress him, of course. and as I was coming up, I blacked out underwater, which is really dangerous;that's how you drown. Luckily, Kirk had seen me and he (53) ………….. over and pulled me up. So, I started full focus. I completely trained to get my breath-hold time up But for TV they wanted me to be upright so they could see my face, basically. The other problem was the suit was so buoyant that (54) ………….. strap my feet in to keep me from floating up. So, (55) ………….. use my legs to hold my feet into the straps that were loose, (56) ………….. a real problem for me. (57) ………….. me extremely nervous, raising the heart rate. Then, what they also did was, which we never did before, is there was a heart-rate monitor. And (58) ………….. right next to the sphere. So, every time my heart would beat, I'd hear the beep-beep-beep-beep, you know, the ticking, really loud. (59) ………….. making me more nervous. And there was no way to slow my heart rate down. Normally, I would start at 38 beats per minute, which is pretty unusual. (Laughter) This time it started at 120 beats, and it never (60) ………….. down. I (61) ………….. the first five minutes underwater desperately trying to slow my heart rate down. I was just sitting there thinking, "I've got to slow this down. I'm going to fail." And I was getting more nervous. And the heart rate just (62) ………….. going up and up, all the way up to 150 beats. Basically it's the same thing that created my downfall at Lincoln Center. (63) ………….. a waste of O2. When (64) ………….. it to the halfway mark, at eight minutes, I was 100 percent certain that I was not going to be able to make this. at least then they can pull me out and take care of me and all that. (Laughter) (65) ………….. pushing to 10 minutes. At 10 minutes you start getting all these really strong tingling sensations in your fingers and toes. And (66) ………….. that that was blood shunting, when the blood rushes away from your extremities to provide oxygen to your vital organs. Then at 13 minutes, maybe because of the hypochondria, I started feeling pains all over my chest. (67) ………….. awful. (Laughter) At 14 minutes, I had these awful contractions, to 150, to 40, to 20, to 150 again. It would skip a beat. It would start. It would stop. And (68) ………….. all this. And I was sure that I was going to have a heart attack. So, at 16 minutes what I did is (69) ………….. my feet out because (70) ………….. that if I did go out, if I did have a heart attack, they'd have to jump into the binding and take my feet out before pulling me up. I was really nervous. (71) ………….. my feet out, and I started floating to the top. And I didn't take my head out. But I was just floating there waiting for my heart to stop, So, with the energy of everybody that was there, I decided to keep pushing. And (72) ………….. to 17 minutes and four seconds. (Applause) (Applause ends) As though that wasn't enough, what I did immediately after is (73) ………….. to Quest Labs and had them take every blood sample that they could to test for everything and to see where my levels were, so the doctors could use it, once again. I also didn't want anybody to question it. I had the world record and I wanted to make sure (74) ………….. legitimate. So, I get to New York City the next day, I'm walking out of the Apple store, and this kid walks up to me he's like, "Yo, D!" I'm like "Yeah?" (75) ………….. , "If you really held your breath that long, why'd you come out of the water dry?" I was like "What?"

Key: Look at the key and say aloud the script from the video to improve your English.

And it ended up being so much fun that I decided I could pursue doing more of these things. The next one is (1) (I froze) myself in a block of ice for three days and three nights in New York City. That one was way more difficult than I had expected. The one after that, (2) (I stood) on top of a hundred-foot pillar for 36 hours. (3) (I began) to hallucinate so hard that the buildings that were behind me started to look like big animal heads. So, next (4) (I went) to London. In London I lived in a glass box for 44 days with nothing but water. (5) (It was) , for me, one of the most difficult things I'd ever done, but (6) (it was) also the most beautiful. There was so many skeptics, especially the press in London, that they started flying cheeseburgers on helicopters around my box to tempt me. (Laughter) So, (7) (I felt) very validated when the New England Journal of Medicine actually used the research for science. My next pursuit was I wanted to see how long I could go without breathing, As a young magician, I was obsessed with Houdini and his underwater challenges. So, (8) (I began) , early on, competing against the other kids, seeing how long I could stay underwater while (9) (they went) up and down to breathe, you know, five times, while I stayed under on one breath. By the time I was a teenager, I was able to hold my breath for three minutes and 30 seconds. I would later find out that was Houdini's personal record. In 1987 (10) (I heard) of a story about a boy that (11) (fell) through ice and was trapped under a river. He was underneath, not breathing for 45 minutes. When the rescue workers (12) (came) , they resuscitated him and there was no brain damage. His core temperature had dropped to 77 degrees. if the boy could survive without breathing for that long, there must be a way that I could do it. So, (13) (I met) with a top neurosurgeon. And I asked him, how long is it possible to go without breathing, like how long could I go without air? And (14) (he said) to me that anything over six minutes you have a serious risk of hypoxic brain damage. So, (15) (I took) that as a challenge, basically. (Laughter) My first try, I figured that I could do something similar, In my first attempt to hold my breath, I couldn't even last a minute. So, I realized that was completely not going to work. (16) (I went) to talk to a doctor friend -- and I asked him, "How could I do that?" "I want to hold my breath for a really long time. How could it be done?" And (17) (he said) , "David, you're a magician, create the illusion of not breathing, it will be much easier." (Laughter) So, (18) (he came up) with this idea of creating a rebreather, with a CO2 scrubber, (19) (which was) basically a tube from Home Depot, with a balloon duct-taped to it, that (20) (he thought) we could put inside of me, and somehow be able to circulate the air and rebreathe with this thing in me. There is a chemical that's called perflubron. And it's so high in oxygen levels that in theory you could breathe it. So, (21) (I got) my hands on that chemical, filled the sink up with it, and (22) (stuck) my face in the sink and tried to breathe that in, (23) (which was) really impossible. It's basically like trying to breathe, as a doctor said, while having an elephant standing on your chest. Then I started thinking, would it be possible to hook up a heart/lung bypass machine and have a surgery where (24) (it was) a tube going into my artery, and then appear to not breathe while they were oxygenating my blood? (25) (Which was) another insane idea, obviously. Then (26) (I thought) about the craziest idea of all the ideas: to actually do it. (Laughter) You know, because they go down for four minutes on one breath. And when I was researching pearl divers, I found the world of free-diving. (27) (It was) the most amazing thing that I ever discovered, pretty much. There is many different aspects to free-diving. There is depth records, where people go as deep as they can. So, I learned never to move. And I learned how to slow my heart rate down. (28) (I had to) remain perfectly still and just relax and think that I wasn't in my body, and just control that. And then I learned how to purge. We'll say big-boned. (Laughter) (29) (I had to) drop 50 pounds in three months. So, everything that (30) (I put) into my body, I considered as medicine. Every bit of food was exactly what (31) (it was) for its nutritional value. (32) (I ate) really small controlled portions throughout the day. And I started to really adapt my body. [Individual results may vary] live on prime-time television. The world record was eight minutes and 58 seconds, held by Tom Sietas, that guy with the whale lungs (33) (I told) you about. I assumed that I could put a water tank at Lincoln Center and if I stayed there a week not eating, I was completely wrong. I entered the sphere a week before the scheduled air date. And (34) (I thought) everything seemed to be on track. Two days before my big breath-hold attempt, for the record, the producers of my television special (35) (thought) that just watching somebody holding their breath, and almost drowning, is too boring for television. (Laughter) So, (36) (I had to) add handcuffs, while holding my breath, to escape from. (37) (This was) a critical mistake. Because of the movement, I was wasting oxygen. And by seven minutes I had gone into these awful convulsions. By 7:08, I started to black out. And by seven minutes and 30 seconds, (38) (they had to) pull my body out and bring me back. I had failed on every level. (Laughter) I decided to call Oprah. (Laughter) (39) (I told) her that I wanted to up the ante and hold my breath longer than any human being ever had. (40) (This was) a different record. (41) (This was) a pure O2 static apnea record that Guinness had set the world record at 13 minutes. So, basically you breathe pure O2 first, oxygenating your body, flushing out CO2, (Laughter ends) In January of '08, Oprah (42) (gave) me four months to prepare and train. So, I would sleep in a hypoxic tent every night. A hypoxic tent is a tent that simulates altitude at 15,000 feet. your brain is completely wiped out. My first attempt on pure O2,I was able to go up to 15 minutes. So, (43) (it was) a pretty big success. The neurosurgeon pulled me out of the water because in his mind, at 15 minutes your brain is done, you're brain dead. So, he pulled me up, and I was fine. There was one person there that was definitely not impressed. (44) (It was) my ex-girlfriend. While I was breaking the record underwater for the first time, she was sifting through my Blackberry, checking all my messages. (Laughter ends) I then announced that I was going to go for Sietas' record, publicly. And what he did in response, is he (45) (went) on Regis and Kelly, and (46) (broke) his old record. Then his main competitor (47) (went) out and (48) (broke) his record. So, he suddenly pushed the record up to16 minutes and 32 seconds. (49) (Which was) three minutes longer than I had prepared. (50) (It was) longer than the record. I wanted to get the Science Times to document this. I wanted to get them to do a piece on it. I walked into the New York Times offices and did card tricks to everybody. (Laughter) So, I don't know if (51) (it was) the magic or the lure of the Cayman Islands, but John Tierney (52) (flew) down and did a piece on the seriousness of breath-holding. While he was there, I tried to impress him, of course. and as I was coming up, I blacked out underwater, which is really dangerous;that's how you drown. Luckily, Kirk had seen me and he (53) (swam) over and pulled me up. So, I started full focus. I completely trained to get my breath-hold time up But for TV they wanted me to be upright so they could see my face, basically. The other problem was the suit was so buoyant that (54) (they had to) strap my feet in to keep me from floating up. So, (55) (I had to) use my legs to hold my feet into the straps that were loose, (56) (which was) a real problem for me. (57) (That made) me extremely nervous, raising the heart rate. Then, what they also did was, which we never did before, is there was a heart-rate monitor. And (58) (it was) right next to the sphere. So, every time my heart would beat, I'd hear the beep-beep-beep-beep, you know, the ticking, really loud. (59) (Which was) making me more nervous. And there was no way to slow my heart rate down. Normally, I would start at 38 beats per minute, which is pretty unusual. (Laughter) This time it started at 120 beats, and it never (60) (went) down. I (61) (spent) the first five minutes underwater desperately trying to slow my heart rate down. I was just sitting there thinking, "I've got to slow this down. I'm going to fail." And I was getting more nervous. And the heart rate just (62) (kept) going up and up, all the way up to 150 beats. Basically it's the same thing that created my downfall at Lincoln Center. (63) (It was) a waste of O2. When (64) (I made) it to the halfway mark, at eight minutes, I was 100 percent certain that I was not going to be able to make this. at least then they can pull me out and take care of me and all that. (Laughter) (65) (I kept) pushing to 10 minutes. At 10 minutes you start getting all these really strong tingling sensations in your fingers and toes. And (66) (I knew) that that was blood shunting, when the blood rushes away from your extremities to provide oxygen to your vital organs. Then at 13 minutes, maybe because of the hypochondria, I started feeling pains all over my chest. (67) (It was) awful. (Laughter) At 14 minutes, I had these awful contractions, to 150, to 40, to 20, to 150 again. It would skip a beat. It would start. It would stop. And (68) (I felt) all this. And I was sure that I was going to have a heart attack. So, at 16 minutes what I did is (69) (I slid) my feet out because (70) (I knew) that if I did go out, if I did have a heart attack, they'd have to jump into the binding and take my feet out before pulling me up. I was really nervous. (71) (I let) my feet out, and I started floating to the top. And I didn't take my head out. But I was just floating there waiting for my heart to stop, So, with the energy of everybody that was there, I decided to keep pushing. And (72) (I went) to 17 minutes and four seconds. (Applause) (Applause ends) As though that wasn't enough, what I did immediately after is (73) (I went) to Quest Labs and had them take every blood sample that they could to test for everything and to see where my levels were, so the doctors could use it, once again. I also didn't want anybody to question it. I had the world record and I wanted to make sure (74) (it was) legitimate. So, I get to New York City the next day, I'm walking out of the Apple store, and this kid walks up to me he's like, "Yo, D!" I'm like "Yeah?" (75) (He said) , "If you really held your breath that long, why'd you come out of the water dry?" I was like "What?"

Sources: 

Channel: TED. How I held my breath for 17 minutes | David Blaine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFnGhrC_3Gs

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Compiled by Top Grade Edu