Title:
What Happens When the Living Race With the Undead
Description: This is
a VOA Special English General News Report.
See text below
Text:
Hundreds of people are preparing for an unusual race
in Alexandria, Virginia. "Don't get touched by
zombies." "Run really fast. Don't get bit." "Kill
Zombies!" The race is called "Survive Alexandria."
SALIL MANITAHLA: "You have to keep your map all the
way until the end of the race."
Zombies are creatures that appear in popular
culture. They are dead bodies brought back to life.
They appear in horror films as the walking undead
and are said to eat the brains of the living. Salil
Maniktahla explains the race.
SALIL MANIKTAHLA: "Zombie Tag is pretty simple. The
idea of it is that we have a bunch of runners. Then
zombies tag runners. And as people are tagged, they
become zombies, too. The first people who make it to
the end are the winners."
The game is more about the living than the undead.
SALIL MANIKTAHLA: "This is about the community, for
people in a time when I think people kind of need
something like this."
The event is free, but many people donate money to
help needy children.
"Donations right here for Big Brothers/Big Sisters.
Take your donations. Very good."
Some people decided to run alone. Others formed
teams.
"I'm dressed to hide out." "I'm just going to run.
Run and scream. Maybe try to climb stuff." "Run with
people slower than us!"
Some runners admit they have no chance of winning.
"We have no strategy. I'm just trying to figure out
where the first checkpoint is." "I decided I wasn't
going to be a runner for long. So go ahead and get
ready to be a zombie." "Yeah, I'm pretty much going
to be toast pretty soon. So that's why I was all
prepared." "I'm going to last only five minutes, for
sure."
Technology helps the living against the undead.
"You gotta use technology when fighting zombies, the
undead. That's their weakness."
Each runner told a different story.
"We do aerospace consulting." "Facebook!" "I don't
even live here. I'm in North Carolina." "I love a
good zombie movie so I figured it would be fun." "I
heard it from him at work." "This is my first time
in DC. I've never done this before. I don't know the
area, but still I'm going to come out on top!"
No runner survived long enough to cross the finish
line alive
"No, I got trapped up against a gate, and then
forcibly converted." "I got attacked by one, really
buff military guy. I was ambushed." "Everyone's been
tagged out so far. No one's reached to the end just
yet."
Organizers estimate that more than one thousand
runners took part in the race. That's a lot of
donations for Alexandria's young people. I'm Bob
Doughty.
Hi. I
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the news section of English Global Group. This
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
