First Certificate - FCE exam tips

How are your Easter preparations?

Make sure you understand those words before it comes!

Lent
Lent is the name for the period of approximately 40 days before Easter. During Lent, many Christians do special activities to prepare for Easter. People often give up (stop eating) specific foods for this period, and there may be activities in churches during Lent, also.

Fat Tuesday
This is the name for the final Tuesday of the religious “Carnival season”. On Ash Wednesday, the day after Fat Tuesday, the religious season of Lent starts. Another name for Fat Tuesday is “Shrove Tuesday.”
Fat Tuesday probably gets its name for being the last “party day” before Lent. Lent is a more serious period of time. People generally eat and drink a lot on Fat Tuesday, because they know they won’t be able to have some of their favorite foods for the next 40 days.

Mardi Gras
This is another name for Carnival celebrations, especially in areas that have French influence. “Mardi Gras” actually means “Fat Tuesday” in French. Because it comes from a French word, the “s” in the word “Gras” isn’t pronounced. Even though “Mardi Gras” is originally French, the name is widely used by English speakers.
The most popular Mardi Gras celebration, at least in the English-speaking world, is probably in New Orleans, Louisiana, in the United States. Historically, Louisiana and New Orleans had a lot of French influence and French speakers. This celebration has multiple days of parades, parties and people dressing up in fun costumes.

Mass / church service
If Christians go to church to pray and do other things together, there are a couple different names for that activity.
In Catholic churches, the activity is called “mass.” There is usually a mass on Sunday or sometimes on Saturday, and also for special religious holidays.
In Protestant churches (churches that are separated from the Catholic church), the activity is usually called a “church service.” Generally masses and church services are pretty similar, but there may be some differences depending on the specific church.

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