Passage 3 Vocabulary 1. sack / s ə ek/ v. to dismiss someone from a job 2. unthinkable a. too shocking or unlikely to be imagined as possible 3 . collapse v . (of people and business) to suffer the sudden inability to continue or work correctly 4. skeptical / 'skeptik ə l/ a. doubting that something is true or useful 5. cynical / ' sinik ə l/ a. believing that people are only interested in themselves and are not sincere 6. manipulate /m ə 'n i pj ule i t / v. to control something or someone , often unfairly or dishonestly 7 . disciplinary /' d isiplin ə ri / a. for the purpose of imposing punishment Listen to the passage once to get the main idea. Listen again to fill in the blanks. 1. But in Italy , it seems that almost every autumn there is a reason to protest. Most of the protests are , like the current opposition to the government's , but there are also protests against things like such as heating in the classes or treatment of . 2. And what do students do to protest? All over the country they go on strike, they have demonstrations in the streets , they their schools , they have lots of meetings and they try to run the schools themselves for a period, their own lessons and courses. 3 . In Britain , and a lot of other countries , such is unthinkable . Students are not allowed to go on strike, and if they did they would probably face . 4. The strange thing about this , however , is that despite the number of school hours lost to strikes , Italian students are certainly than their European counterparts. 5 . Their national averages are the same as others, despite the fact that on average they spend time in the classroom-with strikes being only one of the of the Italian school year.