The First International English Language Contest
Ulyanovsk, 2013
Forms: 10 - 11
the 1st Stage of the Contest
Part I. Reading
Task 1.Read the following texts. Choose the most suitable heading from the list A-H for each text(1 – 7). There is one extra heading which you do not need to use.
AEXPENSIVE EQUIPMENT
BCONFUSING RULES
CNO WINNERS OR LOSERS
DLEARNING AND ENJOYMENT
EWHAT TO WEAR
FA MAJOR EVENT
GA DANGEROUS ACTIVITY
HIN CONTROL
1)______
In football and rugby it’s the ‘referee’, in tennis and cricket it’s the ‘umpire’. Whatever name each sport decides to give to this particular person, their role is essentially the same. They are in charge. They start and stop the game, they make sure the players follow the rules, and they have the power to make decisions when there are disagreements between players of opposing teams. With this power comes responsibility, however, and referees and umpires must be equally fair to both teams.
2)______
The most important game in American football each year is the Super Bowl. This is the final of the National Football League, which is held either on the last Sunday of January or the first Sunday of February. This championship game is so popular in the States that it’s always one of the most watched TV shows of the year. At any one moment during the game, approximately 80 to 90 million Americans are watching it on TV!
3)______
Motorcycle racing has been popular with riders and spectators alike for about a hundred years. The high speeds at which the riders go, however, can sometimes lead to disaster. For example, on the Isle of Man, which is a small island between England and Ireland, an annual motorcycle race called the Isle of Man TT has been held since 1907. The roads and tracks which the riders race on are extremely narrow, increasing the chances of accidents. Since the race started, almost 180 riders have been killed while racing there.
4)______
If you ask most people why they choose to do a particular sport, they’ll probably tell you it’s because it’s fun and gives them pleasure. They might also say that it helps keep them fit. Another major benefit of team sports such as football, basketball, cricket and rugby is that they can teach us to work together as a group. This is particularly useful for children, who can then use the skills they have learnt while doing sports in their working and social lives as adults.
5)______
Although most sports are competitive, involving individuals or teams trying to be better than their opponents, recreational fishing is quite different. Whether you’re salt-water fishing in the sea, or fresh-water fishing in a river or lake, whether you’re on your own or with other people, fishing is about relaxation, enjoyment and the occasional moment of excitement. There are no prizes for catching the most or the biggest fish, and no one goes home at the end of the day thinking they’ve lost. It’s not that kind of sport.
6)______
The games snooker and pool, both of which involve hitting balls into pockets on a table covered with material, are extremely popular in the UK, and many pubs have either a pool or a snooker table. If you want to play at home, though, it can be costly. A full-size professional snooker table can cost several thousand pounds — the price of a new car, in other words — and a good ‘cue’, which is the name of the stick used to hit the white ball, can cost several hundred pounds.
7)______
Most sports are associated with particular types of clothing. This is often for practical reasons — it’s obviously not very sensible to put on a heavy sweater when you’re about to get into a swimming pool, for example, or to just be in shorts and a T-shirt when fishing on a cold winter’s day. However, some sport clothing is also a result of fashion. Football players’ shorts, for example, seem to get longer or shorter depending on the fashion of the day.
Task 2. Read the following text. Six extracts have been removed from it. Choose from the options A-G the one which fits each gap (1-6). There is one extra option which you do not need to use.
A who want to harm her
B as does her horrible brother Mikey
C if not better
D the most successful adaptation of them all
E than her family does at home
F which is what she decides to do
G whose parents treat her terribly
Several of Roald Dahl’s children’s books, including James and the Giant Peach and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, have been made into successful films. The film Matilda, directed by and starring comic actor Danny DeVito, is based on the Roald Dahl’s book of the same name and is perhaps 1) ______. Mara Wilson stars as Matilda, a sweet and intelligent six-and-a-half-year-old girl 2) ______. When they’re not ignoring her, they’re mean and rude to her, and make her life a misery, 3) ______. Matilda is desperate to go to school and eventually her parents send her to Crunchem Hall, where the evil headmistress Mrs Trunchball (brilliantly played by Pam Ferris) treats her worse, if that’s possible, 4) ______. Matilda has friends at school, though, including her kind teacher Miss Jenny Honey (played by Embeth Davidtz), and she soon discovers she has some strange powers which enable her to fight back against the people 5 ) ______. Although Matilda, which was originally released in 1996, is a highly amusing children’s movie, much of the humour will appeal to adults too and the film is extremely well directed and acted. As a director, DeVito manages to capture completely the tone and style of the original book. Indeed, this is one of the rare occasions where the screen version of a book is equally good,
6 ) ______. The screenplay was written by Nicholas Kazan, son of the famous film director Elia Kazan. The film is also known as Roald Dahl’s Matilda in some countries.
Task 3.Read the text. For questions 1-7 choose the answer (A-D) which you think fits best according to the text.
Although Julie had been with Mrs Worthington just three days, she had already learnt that her boss was the kind of person one had to be careful with. Her changes of mood could be rapid, she definitely did not tolerate failure, laziness or poor work and she firmly believed that everyone’s highest priority should be their work for the company. Julie was enjoying her job as Mrs Worthington’s personal secretary, but she knew that today would be tough.
For several days, Julie had been experiencing toothache. At first, it was merely a minor annoyance that could be ignored. ‘It’ll probably go away by itself,’ Julie told herself. ‘If not, I’ll see the dentist when I’m more settled here at work. It’s not that urgent.’
It didn’t disappear, however, and after an extremely uncomfortable night, Julie awoke to severe dental pain.
‘That’s just what I need,’ she said to herself. ‘Maybe I can get a dentist’s appointment for this evening, after work.’
Julie called the dentist’s. ‘I’m afraid the only time the dentist has available today is at 3.30 pm this afternoon,’said the receptionist. Julie had to make an immediate decision. ‘I’ll take it,’ she said.
The question was, how was Mrs Worthington going to react? Would she say, ‘Of course you can leave early,Julie. In fact, leave at lunchtime and don’t come back until you’re completely better.’? Julie knew a far more likely response would be something along the lines of: ‘Well, that really is most inconvenient. Couldn’t you have arranged to see the dentist in your own time? You have to think about the company as well, you know. We can’t all take time off whenever we feel like it. We’d never get any work done if we all spent the day running around seeing doctors and dentists. Can’t you change the time of your appointment?’
The pain was increasing in intensity, though, and Julie knew she had to see a dentist today. If the only solution was to leave work early and face Mrs Worthington’s displeasure, then so be it.
‘Here’s your coffee, Mrs Worthington,’ said Julie, as she went into her boss’ office for the first time that morning.
‘Thank you, Julie,’ said Mrs Worthington, without looking up. ‘Don’t forget I need those reports typed up by three o’clock at the latest. I’ve got a meeting with Mr Price this afternoon.’
‘Yes, Mrs Worthington. I’ve nearly finished them. Umm … Sorry, Mrs Worthington, but I wonder if I could ask you something. It’s quite important.’
‘What is it, Julie?’ She looked up from the documents she’d been studying, and without giving Julie a chance to reply, said: ‘Oh my goodness! What’s happened to your face? It’s all swollen on one side. Are you all right?’
‘I’ve got really bad toothache, Mrs Worthington. I called the dentist and tried to make an appointment for this evening but the only time he can see me is at half past three and I know that would mean leaving early but I don’t know what else …’
‘Stop!’ said Mrs Worthington. ‘I quite understand. These things have to be dealt with or they only get worse, don’t they? Get it sorted out, as quickly as possible.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Worthington.’
‘Do you think you can work this morning, Julie? If you can’t, tell me and we’ll find a solution. If you can, just finish those reports as quickly as you can and then go home. Have you taken anything for it, by the way?’
‘No, I haven’t. I think I’d better wait as the dentist will probably have to give me an anaesthetic and you have to be a bit careful, don’t you? But, yes. I can definitely stay and finish the reports. It’s not that bad.’
‘Well, it looks bad enough. I do appreciate it, Julie. I really do.’
As Julie returned to her desk, she wondered if she hadn’t misjudged Mrs Worthington. ‘I couldn’t have asked for a more understanding person to work for — this morning, at least,’ she said to herself, and smiled, despite the pain.
Questions
1)Julie knows that Mrs Worthington
Athinks all of her staff are lazy and bad at their work.
Bwants Julie to put her work before everything else.
Cis only in a good mood for a few minutes each day.
Dthinks that Julie is not hard-working enough.
2) When Julie says ‘That’s just what I need’, she
Ais being optimistic about the situation.
Bis trying to pretend she is okay.
Cmeans the opposite of what she says.
Dsuggests she has found a solution.
3) Julie expects Mrs Worthington to respond by
Asuggesting Julie sees a doctor instead.
Bcriticising Julie for being selfish.
Callowing Julie to leave work early.
Dtelling Julie to stop complaining.
4) Mrs Worthington doesn’t look at Julie because she is busy
Alooking at some documents.
Bdrinking a cup of coffee.
Ctalking to Mr Price.
Dtyping some reports.
5) Mrs Worthington interrupts Julie to
Atell her to leave the building immediately.
Bexpress her displeasure at what she said.
Cfind out some more information from her.
Dgive her permission to see the dentist.
6) Mrs Worthington asks Julie whether she
Acan think of a solution to the problem.
Bhas taken any medicine for the pain.
Chas already finished typing the reports.
Dcan tell her what work has to be done.
7) When Julie leaves Mrs Worthington’s office, she
Afeels that she hadn’t misjudged Mrs Worthington after all.
Bwonders why she’d misjudged Mrs Worthington so badly.
Crecognizes some good qualities in Mrs Worthington.
Dwishes Mrs Worthington had been more understanding.
Part II. Use of English
Task 1.Read the text. Use the word given in capitals to form a word that fits grammatically in the space.
School Uniforms
Many people believe that uniforms are better than casual clothes for children at school because they remind the children that they have to follow rules.Casual clothes 1)______(NOT DO) this.With all the children at school 2) ______(WEAR) the same clothes, children from rich families dress the same way as children from poorer families.A uniform also 3) ______(CREATE) a feeling that everyone at the same school is part of the same community.In the 1960s and 1970s, many schools in Britain 4) ______(STOP) having a school uniform because of the expense for parents.Since then, however, a number of these schools 5)______(BRING) uniforms back.Their new uniforms are more comfortable and more fashionable than uniforms 6) ______(BE) forty years ago.They’re so popular that many of the head teachers at schools without uniforms7) ______(THINK) now about bringing uniforms back there too.
Task 2. Read the following text and decide which answer (A-D) best fits each space.
The main argument used against the space programme is that the enormous amount of money it costs could be better spent on solving problems such as poverty and environmental damage here on Earth. Initially, this view1)______persuasive, particularly when confronted with how huge the amounts of money we are talking about actually are. Surely, the argument goes, if, instead of sending hundreds of billions of dollars up into space for a pointless walk on the Moon or a few glossy colour photographs of Mars, we channelled the funds into2)______projects on our own planet, we could solve all the world’s problems in about as short a time as it takes for the space shuttle to circle the globe. How appealing and — perhaps sadly — how untrue. The fallacy of that argument is in the idea that all of the money allotted to the space programme is wasted in space. It isn’t. None of the money goes into space at3)______. It stays right here on Earth and is fed back into the economy. Take the astronauts and tens of thousands of other people who are involved in whatever way with the space programme. They spend their salaries — and pay tax on them — here on Earth. That tax is used by governments to do a number of important things: build hospitals and schools,4)______pensions, pay for the police service and, yes, fund the space programme. Take the cost of all the spacecraft, the technology inside them and the research that’s done to create that technology. All of that money goes to companies here on Earth, companies which pay tax if they5)______a profit, and pay salaries to their workers, who then pay tax to the government, which builds hospitals, etc. Looking at it the other way round, what would happen if all the governments in the world which have a space programme6)______their programmes down tomorrow? Would they have a lot more money to spend on other things? Only for a very short time, because along with the7)______savings there would be enormous costs from the increased unemployment and reduction in taxes received.
1) A sees B views C sounds D hears
2) A worthwhile B generous C pleasant D optimistic
3) A once B best C last D all
4) A donate B provide C contribute D sponsor
5) A make B build C construct D manufacture
6) A finished B ended C turned D closed
7) A immediate B urgent C hurried D fast
Task 3. Read the following text. Use the words given in capitals to form a word that fits grammatically and lexically in the space.
What’s the longest river in the world?Many encyclopedias state with 1) ______(CONFIDENT) that the River Nile in Africa is the longest river in the world.Its length is often given as being 6 695 kilometres. However, there are 2) ______(SCIENCE) who would question that. Indeed, some would argue that the River Amazon in South America is in fact longer than the Nile. At first sight it seems 3) ______(BELIEVE) that we don’t know exactly how long the rivers are. The situation becomes more 4) ______(UNDERSTAND), though,when we consider that there is not always 5) ______(AGREE) about where a river actually starts. Also, how long a river is can change over time. So perhaps the correct 6) ______(RESPOND) to the question ‘Which is the longest river in the world?’ should be: ‘It depends.’
Task 4.For questions 1- 10 read the text below and think of the word which best fits each space. Use only one word which best fits each space.
FASHION
You can tell a great deal about people from the clothes they wear. Basically, most people fall into one of three groups. Firstly, there are those who feel they must wear whatever ‘look’ is currently fashionable, whether it suits them or 1) ______. These people rush to the shops to buy whatever is being promoted 2) ______the large fashion houses and retail chains. They would never 3) ______seen in last year’s styles or colours, because they spend quite 4) ______large proportion of their income 5) ______clothes and accessories, and devote a lot of time to looking through fashion magazines.