Олимпиада по английскому языку 7
Второй (муниципальный) этап Всероссийской олимпиады школьников
Ханты-Мансийский автономный округ – Югра 2008 – 2009 уч. год
9 класс
Reading
Time: 45 minutes
Part 1
Read the text. For each sentence 1-7 given below the text choose from options A, B, C or D the one which completes the sentence in the most suitable way. You have 17 minutes to do the task.
То Join or Not to Join?
(after R. Heinlein)
So when Carl told me that he was not going straight on with school, but serve a term first, I told him I was joining up, too.
"Your old man won't let you." So I took it up with my father. He put down his newspaper and stared at me. "Son, are you out of your mind?" He sighed. "Still, I should have been expecting it; it's a predictable stage in a boy's growing up. You passed all normal stages. And the last one is when a boy decides to join up and wear a pretty uniform. Or to get married right away. Or both." He smiled grimly. "With me it was both. But I got over them in time not to make a fool of myself and ruin my life."
"But, Father, it's just a term."
"Let's discuss that, shall we? Listen, this family has stayed out of politics for over a hundred years - I see no reason for you to break that fine record. I suppose it's the influence of that fellow at your high school." He meant our instructor in History and Moral Philosophy.
"Father, he doesn't recruit us at all! He... if anything, he discourages."
"Hmmph! When you graduate, you're going to study business at Harvard; then, you will go on to the Sorbonne and you'll travel a bit along, find out how business is done elsewhere. Then you'll come home and go to work. You'll start with the usual stock clerk or something, just for the form's sake - but you'll be an executive before you can catch your breath, because I'm not getting any younger and the quicker you can pick up the load, the better. As soon as you're able and willing, you'll be boss. There! How does that strike you as a program? As compared with wasting two years of your life in the army?" He sighed again.
"Son, don't think I don't sympathize with you; I do. But look at the real facts. If there were a war, I'll be the first to cheer you on - and to put the business on a war footing. But there isn't, and there never will be again. We've outgrown wars. So what is this so called 'Federal Armed Service'? Parasitism, pure and simple.
"Son, I had intended to keep something as a surprise for you - a graduation present. But I'm going to tell you now so that you can put this nonsense out of your mind more easily. Not that I am afraid of what you might do; but you are troubled. I know - and this will clear it away. Can you guess what it is?"
"Uh, no."
He grinned. "A vacation trip to Mars."
I must have looked stunned. "Golly, Father, I had no idea -"
"I meant to surprise you and I see I did. But this is a good time for you to enjoy yourself alone; did I mention that? because you'll be hard-pressed to get in even a week on the Moon once you take up your responsibilities." He picked up his paper. "No, don't thank me. Just run along and let me finish my paper -I've got some gentlemen coming in this evening, shortly. Business."
1. The boy wanted to join ______
A. a prestigious university
B. a club which many businessmen had already joined
C. a relative in a trip to Mars
D. military service
2. His Father ______
A. was happy his son was going to become a soldier
B. would like his son to become a businessman
C. expected his son to make a scientist
D. thought it was the time for his son to marry
3. Among his arguments there was not the one that ______
A. stated the family traditions
B. it could spoil his child's life
C. military uniform was ugly
D. his son was under other person's influence
4. Father thought that it was silly to join because ______
A. there were no more armed conflicts on the planet
B. his son wanted to parasite on the society
C. his teacher encouraged him to do so
D. it cost too much
5. The boy was surprised when his father gave him for the graduation present ______
A. money to study in Sorbonne
B. a tourist space shuttle
C. the position of the boss
D. a ticket to go to another planet
6. In the end of the conversation ______
A. the boy was amazed
B. the boy agreed not to join
C. the two men had a fight
D. the father agreed with his son's idea
7. The father and the son spoke ______.
A. friendly and respectively
B. rudely and impolitely
C. coldly and unemotionally
D. joyfully and easily
Part 2
Read texts 8-13 and match them to subjects A-G. Use each letter only once. There is one letter you will not need to use. You have 13 minutes to do this task.
A. / INFORMATIONB. / TRANSPORT
C. / PEOPLE
D. / CLIMATE
E. / TELEVISION
F. / FOOD
G. / RADIO
8. / Ireland is located on an island. Winters in Ireland are not cold and rivers do not freeze. The summer months of June, July and August are mild. However, the weather is changeable. If you are going to visit Ireland in summer, do not forget to take an umbrella and warm clothes.
9. / Most buses in big cities in Ireland have conductors who collect the money, but in small places passengers pay the driver. The trains in Ireland are not cheap, but they usually leave on time. Taxies are easy to get although they are rather expensive in comparison to other countries.
10. / Irish farmhouse cheeses are very popular gift items. Other products to delight tourists are Irish salmon, netted in autumn, oysters and hand-made chocolates.
11. / The best place to learn how to get a room in a hotel, change money, and much more is your nearest Tourist office. In Dublin city-centre the Tourist office is situated at 14 Upper O'Connel Street, beside the Savoy cinema.
12. / Ireland has two national stations, RTE 1 and Network 2. You can watch different programmes. Most popular are political news, country news, sports and music programmes. People can also enjoy watching drama, films etc.
13. / It is impossible to make any statement about the characteristics of the Irish, but they are known for their humour, hospitality, kindness.
The Irish know how to have a good time and very often they get enjoyment in the pub to the accompaniment of Irish folk music.
8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13
Part 3
Read questions 14-18 and the text. Match the questions to paragraphs A-F containing answers to these questions. Use each letter only once. There is one letter you will not need to use. You have 15 minutes to do this task.
14. What paragraph defines machine translation?
15. What paragraph describes the usefulness of machine translation?
16. What paragraph discusses two modes of machine translation?
17. What paragraph shows the algorithm of machine translation?
18. What paragraph shows the problems of machine translation?
A. Machine translation is a text rendered from one language into another by a computer. The practice of machine translation shows that the rendering which doesn't require correction can't be obtained nowadays. So machine translation can be described as a text prepared for a human translator and corrector.
B. As machine translations always require human checking and correcting, there arises the question of it being practical. The studies show that the usefulness of machine translation depends on the machine being oriented in certain knowledge domains and in this case can lessen the translation expenses in time and money up to 20%.
С. Translation specialists discovered that machine translation always involves a human (humans), but can be realized in two main situations. The first is described as human-aided machine translation (HAMT), when the translating system creates the translation which a human translator checks later on. The second is defined as machine-aided human translation (MAHT). In this case a human translator is assisted by a machine (computer), which checks spelling, offers meanings of words, etc. Both situations are realized in appropriate circumstances. A poetic text can't be translated well by a computer, while medical documents are suitable for HAMT translation.
D. Nowadays many scientists study the problem of machine translation, and one of them is L. Belyaeva, a Russian scientist. She is the leader of Machine Translation Lab in St. Petersburg. l.Dagan, a German scien tist, is also a star in this field. S.Nirenburg works in Britain, his works on translation techniques became the basis of the modern machine translation.
E. As any human language has odd points, for example, words which mean different things but are spelt the same (like mean, pen, can in English), complex syntactical structures, etc, the first stage of machine translation is preparing the text for the machine. Then the machine is doing the translation, asking for human aid if needed. After the translation is completed, a human translator checks and corrects it.
F. There are many limitations of machine translation. One of them is the fact that a machine translates single sentences, not the text, so the sentences in the text may miscorrespond. There are many words which are difficult for the machines, such as names of people, geographical objects, titles of books, etc. Long sentences are also a great difficulty for a machine for they can be cut into logical segments differently.
14 / 15 / 16 / 17 / 18TRANSFER ALL YOUR ANSWERS TO YOUR ANSWER SHEET
Use of English
Time: 45 minutes
Task 1
Read the text. Use the word in capitals at the end of each line in the form that fits in the space in the same line. You have 13 minutes to do this task (7 points).
"Have a good time!" (1) ___ his guardian with an SAY 1) ______
even (2) ___ smile. He left without another word. NASTY 2) ______
Henry (3) ___ and saw the Foster family drive TURN 3) ______
away. All three of them seemed to enjoy (4) ___ . THEY 4) ______
Henry's mouth went rather dry. What
on earth was he going to do? He (5) ___ START 5) ______
to attract (6) ___ of surprised looks. He would HUNDRED 6) ______
have to ask someone. He stopped a passing guard,
but didn't dare (7) ___ his problem. MENTION 7) ______
Task 2
Read the text. Use the word in capitals at the end of each line to form a word that fits in the space in the same line. You have 14 minutes to do this task (8 points).
How old is Stonehenge?
Stonehenge, the most famous (1) ___ monument HISTORY 8) ______
in Britain, is situated on Salisbury Plain.
At (2) ___ times regarded as a site built by VARY 9) ______
the Druids, the Romans, the Danes and even
the French, the first stage - a (3) ___ ditch CIRCLE 10) ______
and bank with an (4) ___ flanked by a pair of ENTER 11) ______
small (5) ___ stones - is believed to have STAND 12) ______
been build around 5,000 years ago. The site
was (6) ___ abandoned and rebuilt between SEQUENT 13) ______
2100 ВС and 1800 ВС. Nowadays it is not
only a site but also a place where modern
pagans have their services. They wear
(7) ___ clothes and self-made ornaments, COLOUR 14) ______
(8) ___ and made of silver. WOOD 15) ______
Task 3
Read the text. Look carefully at each line. Some lines are correct, but some have a word which shouldn’t be there. Put “C” at the end of the line if it is correct. If a line has a word which should not be there, write the word in the space. You have 15 minutes to do this task (7 points).
The career of his dreams
Terry had originally had planned to be an engineer and so __had______
went to study at the University of London. After a few months, he ___C______
realized he couldn't not manage on the allowance his ___not______
parents gave him. He didn't find the course very interesting (16) ______
so he gave up his studies and made the decision to go to Italy (17) ______
to improve his knowledge of the language. While he was at (18) ______
living in Rome, he met a photographer who showed him how (19) ______
to take an exciting pictures. Terry had a natural talent for this and (20) ______
became fascinated by this art. He realized he had been found the job (21) ______
of his dreams without having to study for professional qualifications. (22) ______
Task 4
Read the text. Decide which answer A, B, C or D best fits each space (23-30). You have 13 minutes to do this task (8 points).
A burglar wanted to steal a valuable picture. One night he __ (23) into the house and went into the hall. Suddenly a ghost entered the hall. The robber was so much shocked he could hardly __ (24). "Hi! - said the ghost. - What a pretty costume. Very life-like!" At that moment a smiling vampire came in. In his hand he was holding a glass with some red liquid. The vampire shouted, "How nice you __ (25), we are running __ (26) of the drink!" The burglar rushed __(27) the house. On the gate he saw the following words: "Like __ (28) up? Our party is just for you!" It was only a Halloween party! If he only had known about it! The burglar thought that after __ (29) time he __ (30) no more.
23. A) broke B) broken C) had broken D) was breaking
24. A) stay B) stand C) stop D) stray