Category Archives: Тести
Academy Awards
Academy Awards is the name for prizes given annually in the United States by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for excellence in the creation and production of motion pictures. First presented in 1929 for films shown in 1927 and 1928, the Academy Awards, commonly known as Oscars, are among the film industry’s most coveted prizes.
A Good Morning
When I was a boy I lived a long way from school. I had to walk through the forest to get to our school. I usually took my father’s gun with me. One day, coming from school, I heard cries from Mr. Epperly’s house. His dog, Old Ranger, had fought with a mad dog, half an hour before. Now all the people were afraid of Old Ranger because the dog could have become mad too. They all asked Mr. Epperly to shoot Old Ranger. Mr. Epperly said he could not do it himself. He asked some people to do it but nobody agreed. Mr. Epperly came up to me and said: “Joe, why can’t you take the dog with you to the forest on your way home and shoot it?” I told Mr. Epperly I did not want to shoot Old Ranger. “I’ll give you one dollar if you do it,” he said.
Task 16. Kelly Ryan
Kelly Ryan lives in Kentucky in the USA and starts her new school year in August. She doesn’t go back to just one school, but two. As well as ordinary high school, she goes to virtual high school. Kelly wants to study history of art, but her local high school doesn’t teach it. So she’s taking it on the Internet.
Kentucky is one of the two states in America at the moment that offers virtual high school classes to all their school students — the other is Florida. This is just the beginning. Virtual schools and universities are starting up all over the world. Some education experts think that in 20 years’ time, there’ll be no more real classrooms — only virtual ones.
So how does virtual school work? When Kelly gets home from regular school, she logs on to the Internet on the family computer. On the home page of her course web site she reads any messages from her teacher and other students. On the ‘What’s new’ page the teacher explains what the next piece of work is and where to find out about the subject on the Internet. Each student has a virtual course book. Kelly does her work here and only she and her teacher can look at it. She uses e-mail to talk to other students of the course (no more than 25) and her teacher. There is a text page where the teacher puts video clips, pieces of text to read and pictures to look at. Any extra materials, such as books, are sent through the post to Kelly’s home.
Dinner for Mr. Martin
When I was a child, I was afraid of many things. I was afraid of the dark, of dogs, of older boys, even of people shouting. My mother was always trying to teach me not to be afraid. She often told me: “What will you be doing when you grow up if you are afraid of everything? How will you be living? How will you be working?” One day she told me a story about herself. A story that I remembered so well.
Task 12. The American Family
Belonging to a family is one bond almost everyone in the world shares, but family patterns vary from country to country. What are families like in the United States?
Nine out of ten people in the USA live as members of families and they value their families highly. Most of the Americans say that family is very important to them. “Families,” they say, “give us a sense of belonging and a sense of tradition, families give us strength and purpose. Our families show us where we are. The things we need most deeply in our lives – love, communication, respect and good relationships – have their beginnings in the family.” Families serve many functions. They provide conditions in which children can be born and brought up. Families help to educate their members. Parents teach their children values (that is what they think is important) as well as daily skills. They also teach them common practices and customs, such as respect for elders and celebrating holidays. But the most important job for a family is to give emotional support and security.
When Americans speak about families, many of them mean a “traditional family”. A traditional American family is one in which both parents are living together with their children. The father goes out and works and the mother stays home and brings up the children. There are two children in a traditional American family: an elder daughter (called “Sis”) and a younger brother (“Buddy” or “Junior”). This does not mean that such size of family or order of birth is statistically more common in the United States than in other countries, but this is the typical structure when a traditional American family is pictured in illustrations or advertisements.
But most American families today do not fit this image. The biggest change is that in many families both parents work outside the home.