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Тренировочные задания государственной (итоговой) аттестации обучающихся, освоивших образовательные программы основного общего образования, по английскому языку.

Задания на чтение.

Задание 1

В3

1. An important instrument
2. Traditional instruments
3. Performers and shows of country music
4. The development of the music industry
5. The songs of the Wild West
6. Country music throughout the world
7. The origin of the term
8. The contribution of a well-known rock star

A.A popular American musical style that began in the Southern United States in the 1920s is  called country music. The term country music gained popularity in the 1940s in preference to the earlier term hillbilly music. The term country music is used today to describe many styles and subgenres. Harlan Howard stated “ Country music is three chords and the truth.”

B.Immigrants to the Maritime Provinces and Southern Appalachian Mountains of North America brought the music and instruments of the Old World along with them for nearly 300 years. They brought some of their most important valuables with them, and to most of them this was an instrument: “Early Scottish settlers enjoyed the fiddle because it could be played to sound sad and mournful or bright and bouncy”. The Irish fiddle, the German derived dulcimer, the Italian mandolin, the Spanish guitar and the West African banjo were the most common musical instruments.

C.During the 1930s and 1940s cowboy songs or Western music, which had been recorded since the 1920s, were popularized by films made in Hollywood. Some of the popular singing cowboys from the era were Gene Autry, the Sons of the Pioneers and Roy Rogers. And it wasn’t only cowboys; cowgirls contributed to the sound in various family groups. Patsy Montana opened the door for female artists with her history making song “I Want to Be a Cowboy’s Sweetheart”. This would begin a movement toward opportunities for women to have successful solo careers.

D.Drums were scorned by early country musicians as being “too loud” and “not pure”, but by 1935 Western swing big band leader Bob Wills had added drums to the Texas Playboys. In the mid 1940s, the Grand Ole Opry did not want the Playboys’ drummer to appear on stage. Although drums were commonly used by rockabilly groups by 1955, the less-conservative-than-the-Grand Ole Opry Louisiana Hayride kept its infrequently used drummer back stage as late as 1956. By the early 1960s, however, it was rare that a country band didn’t have a drummer.

E.Rockabilly was most popular with country fans in the 1950s, and 1956 could be called the year of rockabilly in country music. Rockabilly was a mixture of rock-and-roll and hillbilly music. During this period Elvis Presley converted over to country music. He played a huge role in the music industry during this time. Beginning in the mid 1950s and reaching its peak during the early 1960s, the Nashville sound turned country music into a multimillion-dollar industry centered in Nashville, Tennessee.

F.In the 1990s alternative country came to refer to a diverse group of musicians and singers operating outside the traditions and industry of mainstream country music. In general, they understood the high production values and pop outlook of the Nashville-dominated industry to produce music with a lo-fi sound, frequently infused with a strong punk and alternative aesthetic, bending the traditional rules of country music. Lyrics were often bleak, gothic or socially aware.

G.Outside of the US, Canada has the largest country music fan and artist base. Mainstream country music is culturally ingrained in the Maritimes and the prairie provinces: areas with large numbers of rural residents. Australian country music has a long tradition. It has developed a distinct style shaped by British and Irish folk ballads and Australian bush balladeers and is influenced by American country music.

Задание 2

В3

1. Different  modifications
2. Production of aircrafts
3. Museum exhibits.
4. Design and flight characteristics
5. Flight tests
6. Famous battles
7. What is spitfire?
8. The role of spitfire  in World War II

1. Spitfire, the most widely produced and strategically important British single-seat fighter of World War II was also called Supermarine Spitfire. The Spitfire, renowned for winning victory laurels in the Battle of Britain (1940- 41) along with the Hawker Hurricane, served in every theatre of the war and was produced in more variants than any other British aircraft. The Spitfire continued to be used as a front line fighter and in secondary roles into the 1950s. It was produced in greater numbers than any other British aircraft and was the only British fighter in production throughout the war.
2. The Spitfire was a project of Reginald Mitchell. The airplane was a direct descendant of a series of floatplanes. One of these races, the S.6, set a world speed record of 357 miles (574 km) per hour in 1929. The Spitfire first flew in March 1935. It had superb performance and flight characteristics. A more radical design than the Hurricane, the Spitfire had a stressed-skin aluminum structure and a graceful elliptical wing that gave it exceptional performance at high altitudes.
3. In February1936 the director of Vickers-Armstrongs, Sir Robert MacLean, guaranteed production of five aircraft a week. On the 3th of June 1936, the Air Ministry placed an order for 310 aircraft, for a price of £1,395,000. But it quickly became clear that the order could not be completed in the 15 months promised. Supermarine was a small company. Thus the first production Spitfire rolled off the assembly line in mid-1938. It  was flown on the 15th   of May 1938, almost 24 months after the initial order.
4. The Spitfire entered service on the 4th of August 1938. The Spitfire achieved legendary status during the Battle of Britain. The Spitfire continued to play increasingly diverse roles throughout the Second World War. It became the first high- speed photo- reconnaissance aircraft. In 1941 and 1942, Spitfires provided the first photographs of the Freya and Würzburg radar systems.
5. Beginning in late 1943, high- speed trials were undertaken to investigate the handling characteristics of aircraft travelling at speeds near the sound barrier. A Spitfire XI was chosen to take part in these trials. It was during these trials that EN409reached 606 mph. On the 5thof February 1952, the pilot, Flight Lieutenant Ted Powles, was on a routine flight but he climbed to 51,550ft.
6. As its designer, R.J. Mitchell will forever be known for his most famous creation. However, the development of the Spitfire did not cease with his premature death in 1937. Mitchell only lived long enough to see the prototype Spitfire fly. Subsequently a team led by his chief draughtsman, Joe Smith, developed more powerful and capable variants to keep the Spitfire current as a front-line aircraft. All in all there were 24 marks of Spitfire and many subvariants.        
7. There are approximately 50 Spitfires and 2 Seafires in airworthy condition worldwide with another 23 restoration to airworthy projects underway at the time of writing. (2011). There are also examples on static display in many air museums. The most originally restored Spitfire in the world is maintained in airworthy condition at Fantasy of flight in Polk City, Florida.

Задание 3

B3

Прочитайте тексты и установите соответствие между заголовками 1-8 и текстами A-G. Занесите свои ответы в таблицу. Используйте каждую букву только один раз. В задании есть один лишний заголовок.

1. The development of the Internet                      

2. Irrational beliefs or superstitions      

3. An important communication link                

4. Do you like to be bothered with worrying about fashion?

5. A medicinal plant

6. Online game characters

7. Symbolic plants

8. Is graffiti art or crime?

A.Probably it’s the most significant development of the «information age». Like the first computers, it was developed by U.S. military and researchers at American universities. It entered mainstream America in the early 1990’s and soon millions were surfing the Internet via World Wide Web. The Internet has changed the way we think, live, shop, learn and communicate. People across the country or around the globe can meet and connect online.

B.Many people see graffiti as purely vandalism, but to somebody it’s a form of writing, illustration and self-expression. Graffiti has been around for a long time, and was originally used as a voice for political activists and by street gangs to mark territory. The latter brought about a culture of tagging — writing some kind of recognizable signature in urban areas. There is not so much artistic merit in tagging, and it’s a big contributor to graffiti’s bad name. But sometimes disrespect is shown when good quality artwork is defaced or removed. It is like fishing — means a great deal to the people involved, yet very little to anyone else.

C.A pretty but ordinary-looking plant from Madagascar, the rosy periwinkle has saved countless lives. Traditional healers used it to treat diabetes, and when modern scientists started investigating, they found, almost by chance, that it contained two vital cancer-fighting substances. Some helped increase the chance of children surviving leukemia. Worldwide sales top $75 million a year, but little of this money has found its way back to Madagascar, one of the world’s poorest countries.

D.In all civilizations, plants have been viewed as sacred. For example, in Greco-Roman antiquity, the common myrtle was held to be sacred to Venus and was used as an emblem of love in wreaths and other decorations. The aromatic common myrtle is native to the Mediterranean region and the Middle East and is cultivated in southern England and the warmer regions of North America.

E.Amulets or charms have been used for protection in all ages and in all types of human societies; they persist even today in industrial societies, in which they are mass-produced by the most modern methods. The purpose of most amulets is not so much religious as it is for protection against danger, sickness and bad luck. The same is true of talismans, which offer the additional advantage of conferring supernatural power on other people.

F. The society of today is totally fixed on your appearance. Everyday it’s like you go through a competition. You feel like everyone is talking about you and rates your daily dress, your new haircut, make-up and so on. The desire to find someone who seems to match your ideals is very high. Many people do everything to look like their idols. They lose their individuality. In this way a «mainstream-human» is born. But all trends are short-lived. So it is no use running after those false ideals and mainstream thinking. Be yourself and don’t let others control your life.

G.Sending e-mails or instant messages you are more likely to be in cyberspace. Instant messaging or sending written messages online in real time is a nightly activity for millions of teenagers around the world. Adults do these things, too, but not really as much as teens do. Unlike a one-to-one telephone conversation, instant messaging allows people to «talk» to all their friends at once. Users get immediate feedback — but they also must type quickly, making slang terms and abbreviations.

Задание 4

В3

1. Famous sights
2. Eating out
3. Sporting events
4. Means of transport
5. Pages from history
6. The location of the city
7. Education
8. Population

1. Influence of New York City is seen throughout the world although is not the capital of the United States. Its nickname, `Big Apple`, was given to it by early immigrants because the city seemed so huge and full of promise. It is located at the mouth of the Hudson River and lies on the same territory as the European cities of Naples and Madrid.
2. The Dutch founded the city in 1614, calling it New Amsterdam. However, in 1664 it was captured by the British and renamed New York. The city grew in importance and was the US capital until 1790. During the 19th century it was transformed by immigration and from the early 20th century became a world centre for industry, commerce and communication. With the economic boom came the construction of its skyline of skyscrapers, two of which, the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre, were destroyed in the attacks of September 11th 2001, when nearly 3,000 people died.
3. New York is the most densely populated and cosmopolitan city in the US with 8, 214, 246 inhabitants speaking 170 languages. 36 % of the city`s population is foreign born. Five of the largest ethnic groups are: Puerto Ricans, Italians, West Indians, Chinese and Irish.
4. One in the three New Yorkers uses public transport to get to work, whereas in the rest of the US 90% of people go by car. The New York City Subway, which is open 24/7, is used by 1,4 billion passengers a year. New York is also home to the famous Grand Central Station, three major airports, and 12,000 distinctive, yellow taxi cabs.
5. The New York Marathon held annually on the first Sunday of November, is the largest marathon of the world. It attracts 37,000 runners. However, many New Yorkers prefer a less energetic jog round Central Park. New Yorkers are also keen baseball fans. The two most popular teams are The New York Yankees and The New York Mets.
6. About 40 million tourists visit New York City each year. Major attractions include the Empire State Building, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Times Square, Central Park and, of course, the luxury shops along the Fifth Avenue. If you are fond of theatres, you can find a lot of them on Broad Way.
7. Tourist are also attracted by the incredible variety of places to eat, from diners with their burgers, bagels and pizza, to many of the finest haute cuisine restaurants in the US, and forgetting the Grand Central Oyster Bar, and the streaming hotdogs sold on every street corner. It is often called `The city that never sleeps` because there is so much to do and see.

Задание 5

В3

1. Flying dragons
2. Asian dragons
3. European legends
4. The origin of the name
5. Dragons in the 20th century
6. Dragons in cartography
7. Dragons’ appearance
8. Greek mythology

1. Animals with a body like a huge lizard or a snake with two pairs of lizard-type legs emitting fire from their mouths are known as dragons in modern times. The European dragon has bat-type wings growing from its back. A dragon-like creature with no front legs is known as a wyvern. Following discovery of how pterosaurs walked on the ground, some dragons have been portrayed without front legs and using the wings as front legs pterosaur-fashion when on the ground. They are sometimes portrayed as having especially large eyes or watching treasure very diligently, a feature that is the origin of the word dragon (Greek drakein  meaning  “to see clearly”).
2. The word dragon entered the English language in the early 13th century from Old French dragon, which in turn comes from Latin draconem (nominative draco) meaning “huge serpent, dragon” from the Greek word бракwv, drakon (genitive drakontos,) “serpent, giant seafish”, which is believed to have come from an earlier stem drak -, a stem of derkesthai, “to see clearly,” from Proto-Indo-European derk – “to see” or “the one with the (deadly) glance.” The Greek and Latin term referred to any great serpent, not necessarily mythological, and this usage was also current in English up to the 18th century.
3. The earliest depiction of the oriental dragon was the Chinese dragon with examples dating back to the 16th century BC. Archaeologist Zhou Chong –Fa believes that the Chinese word for dragon is an imitation of the sound thunder makes. The Chinese name for dragon is pronounced “long” in Mandarin Chinese or “luhng” in the Cantonese. Sometime after the 9th century AD, Japan adopted the Chinese dragon through the spread of Buddhism.
4. In Ancient Greece the first mention of a “dragon” is derived from the Iliad where Agamemnon is described as having a blue dragon motif on his sword belt and a three-headed dragon emblem on his breast plate. However, the Greek word used could also mean “snake”. In 217 A.D., Flavius Philostratus discussed dragons in India in The Life of Apollonius of Tyana. The Loeb Classical Library translation mentions that “In most respects the tusks resemble the largest swine’s, but they are slighter in build and twisted, and have a point as unabraded as sharks’ teeth.”
5. European dragons exist in folklore and mythology among the overlapping cultures of Europe. Dragons are generally depicted as living in rivers or having an underground lair or cave. They are commonly described as having hard or armoured hide, and are rarely described as flying, despite often depicted with wings. Dragons are usually depicted as malevolent though there are exceptions (such as Y Ddraig Goch, the Red Dragon of Wales).
6. In the early 20th century sculpture of the Norwegian artist Gustav Vigeland, inspired by Medieval art, dragons are a frequent theme – as symbols of sin but also as a nature force, fighting against man. There are numerous examples of dragons in modern media, especially the fantasy genre. In the 1937 fantasy novels by J.R.R. Tolkien, later in the Harry Potter novels by J.K. Rowling depict dragons.
7. There is a widespread belief that earlier cartographers used the Latin phrase hic suntdracones, i.e., “the dragons are here”, or “here be dragons”, to denote dangerous or unexplored territories, in imitation of the infrequent medieval practice of putting sea serpents and other mythological creatures in blank areas of maps. However, the only known use of this phrase is in the Latin form “HC SVNT DRACONES” on the Lenox Globe.

Задание 6

В3

Прочитайте тексты и установите соответствие между заголовками 1-8 и текстами A-G. Занесите свои ответы в таблицу. Используйте каждую букву только один раз. В задании есть один лишний заголовок.

1. Worldlanguage                                                     

2. Media and communication          

3. City lifestyle                                                            

4. English in schools

5. Diverse population

6. Leisure and pastime

7. Environmental issues

8. Countryside

A. Speaking English gives people many privileges in society. It is possible to communicate

successfully with those who don’t know your mother tongue. In order to possess these

privileges school teachers introduce six hours of learning English a week for all Russian

schools. Learning English should become more intensive to make Russian citizens more

communicative.

B.The USA is often called a melting pot – a total mix of races and nationalities. In fact, the  

same could be said of Britain, except this process took far longer. The British today are

the result of wave after wave of conquest, migration and mixing. Now there are people

of all colours and races in the UK. They are mostly former inhabitants of the former British colonies.

C.Lately, people have been moving into suburbs, smaller tows and the country. Villages,

farms and cottages, which used to be full of agricultural workers, are now the homes of people who drive to their offices in cities. So Britain remains one of the most urbanized countries in the world, with nine in ten of the population living in towns or cities.

D. The poet William Blake wrote 200 years ago of “ England’s green and pleasant land.”

In spite of their mainly urban lives, this image is still strong in British people imagination. They love their countryside and watch hours of wildlife programmes on TV every week. Some of the first environmental organisations in the world started in Britain. The British managed to defeat the London smog: replacing coal by oil and gas. And they are rather proud of this achievement.

E. English is very popular nowadays. It’s the language of computers, science, business and

politics. English is an amazing language, the language of great literature. Half of the world’s scientific literature is published in English. Nearly half of the world’s business deals in Europe are conducted in English. It’s the language of sports and glamour, being the official language of the Olympic Games. English is the official voice of the air and the sea.

F .Visitors to Britain are often surprised by the titles of the magazines. Some of them are  

extremely specialized and lots of them are of new technology. The British are also great newspaper readers. An almost universal British custom, going for a walk, is another surprising fact. This means healthy exercise in the open air with lots of natural life to study on the way. In the city walkers will look for any little bit of park or canal bank.

G.The Cotwolds are green hills in agricultural country to the west of England. A mixture of small fields separated by old – dry stone walls and lines of trees makes this a perfect  example of raditional rural area. Farming is balanced with cattle and sheep and small spots of   woods. Many farms, houses and churches, like the walls dividing the fields are built of local honey – coloured stone. Villages with climbing roses around the doors of the cottages are small and beautifully kept.

Задание 7

В3

1. Water sports
2. Sightseeing of islands
3. Tourist living conditions
4. Possible changes in the future
5. Religion and culture
6. A new tourist attraction
7. Flora of islands
8. Geography

1. The Maldives has more than 1,000 islands, which are about 400 miles west of Sri Lanka and whose southern islands cross the equator. Indian traders, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Chinese, Greeks, Romans and Arabs all became a part of the Maldives` history as their ships made their way through the dangerous waters and coral reefs. The majority of those who settled was shipwrecked there and must have grown to love the great beauty and peace of the place.
2. Today only 200 of the islands are inhabited, most of them divided between tourists and local people, whose life is based on fishing and coconut trees has remained unchanged for centuries. On some you may see Buddhist temples or Hindu shrines that were built before the 12th century, when the islanders became Muslims. As a result of the Islamic culture, there are beautiful Arabic carvings that you can find in unexpected corners of old villages.
3. The Maldives are now one of the West`s most popular tourist destinations but, depending on the island you choose, it can still be easy to get away from the crowd. Professional divers come to these clear waters for the 320 different kinds of coral, many of which exist nowhere else in the world. But if you have never been scuba-diving or snorkeling before, you will be more astonished by the 3,200 different species of fish, some of them swim up to you and nibble your hands.
4. On land huge trees somehow manage to survive in this thin soil that has grown up over hundreds of years from broken coral. In the midday sun coconut trees throw shade over white sand, and as evening falls, you can hear only the sounds of gentle waves. You also can see amazing flowers everywhere on the different islands.
5. Most of the hotels have been built on islands that were uninhabited for years. However, the guest bungalows, restaurants provide Westerners with high level of comfort and luxury. The accommodation is also very different from the other places, but anyway you can relax there the best.
6. But for an outsider to get a taste of the Maldives beyond their natural beauty, they should visit the island of Gun, only recently opened to tourists. Here a short bicycle ride takes you through areas where whole families are at work collecting coconuts. The people living here are not pure – the shops are full of goods, and every house has electricity.
7. Go to the Maldives before mass tourism changes them too much; and go before global warming causes sea levels to rise and causes these 1000 islands to sink beneath the Indian Ocean and once again become a part of the coral reefs they came from when volcanoes erupted under the sea millions of years ago.

Задание 8

В3

1. Learning by listening
2. A dictionary for different purposes
3. Radio as a source   of learning
4. Main language skills
5. Listening alongside home activities
6. How babies learn
7. Various types of dictionaries
8. Choosing a good dictionary

1. There are four skills in learning a language, namely listening, speaking, reading and writing. They are always related in terms of usage, and speaking is viewed by learners as the most desirable skill in face-to-face communication in the globalization era. What do you have to do before you can speak? What does a child learn before he talks? Listen, of course!
2. Naturally, children begin listening to their parents when they are babies. They are often greeted, spoken to and admired without any response expected. Though nobody knows if  the baby understands the spoken words, the process continues. Children automatically acquire   such language over some time. That leads to speaking skill which is quite applicable to daily conversation.
3. In learning English, listening can help to improve speaking considerably. Although it is the first of all skills, it is neither the easiest nor the most meaningless. We need to hear various types of English repeatedly and continuously if we want to communicate properly, meaningfully and naturally.
4. When listening, we are reviewing a   lot of English usage such as vocabulary, grammatical structures, information, accent etc. We can learn new words and expressions by hearing them frequently. We can imitate what we hear and apply it with great confidence. Listening can be a good «hobby» while we do other things such as cooking, ironing, exercising, relaxing etc. In other words, we have no wasted time at all.
5. Nowadays, radio cassette recorders are household appliances, but we often overlook their radio function. We can experience English language radio programmes almost anywhere   in the world. They are usually picked up on FM bands and aired particularly for foreigners. Short wave radio programmes are another option. Two of the most easily found English language broadcasters are the BBC and Voice of America. Today you can even access them by Internet.
6. A good dictionary will be your guide to English. It will teach you new words, how to pronounce them, and how to use them. It will help you understand English texts. Successful English learners use their dictionaries all the time: when reading books, at English classes, when writing e- mail, when doing homework, when surfing the Web.
7. Monolingual   dictionaries are simply more advanced products. The best dictionaries from the top publishers (like Longman, Oxford or Collins) are monolingual. And the best monolingual dictionaries are far ahead of the best bilingual dictionaries- they have more example sentences, more accurate pronunciation, phrasal verbs and idioms. If you read them regularly, you will automatically memorize the grammar and the words.
8. If possible, get a software dictionary instead of a paper one. Software dictionaries let you look up words very quickly. Typing a word in your keyboard is much faster than turning pages in a large, heavy book. In many software dictionaries, you can listen to recording which show you how to pronounce a word. So, using such dictionaries is more convenient.                         

Задание 9

B3

Прочитайте тексты и установите соответствие между заголовками 1-8 и текстами A-G. Занесите свои ответы в таблицу. Используйте каждую букву только один раз. В задании есть один лишний заголовок.

1        Carrace

2        Realpleasure

3        Favouritetoy

4        Seriousproblems

5        Helpfulmachine

6        Differenttoys

7        Unusualcar

8        Noble Gift

Задание 10

В3

1. St. Patrick and the Western world
2. Traditional colour
3. St. Patrick’s influence on learning
4. A curious souvenir
5. Protection from enemies
6. The founder of Christianity in Ireland
7. St. Patrick’s miracles
8. The symbol of Ireland

1. St. Patrick, Patron saint of Ireland, was a real man who was born around 389 AD and died probably in 461. He studied in European monasteries and after several years was sent back to Ireland as a bishop. There he spent the rest of his life teaching the people of Ireland to read and write while converting them to Christianity: tried to combine old customs with new meanings. Still, his life was in constant danger because there were always people who didn’t want to change.
2. However, as time went on he was loved more and more. During his life-time Patrick’s fame as a teacher and missionary spend throughout the Western world. During the Dark Ages, when education and arts had almost disappeared in Europe, St. Patrick’s teaching kept learning alive in Ireland. The country became known as the ‘Island of Saints and Scholars’.
3. There are a lot of stories about amazing things St. Patrick is supposed to have done. It’s said that once he escaped from his enemies by turning himself and his companies into deer. Another story tells how one of his friends was saved from fire because he was wearing Patrick’s robe. The most famous legends are about how Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland because he had cast a magic spell on them.
4. While the legends about St. Patrick feats are fun and interesting to hear, the truth about him is what made him a great and famous man. Almost singlehandedly he saved the fundamentals of civilization for the Western world. And it is through him that Ireland has its old traditions of scholarship and literature.
5. Ireland is known as the Emerald Isle because of the lush green colour of the landscape. Its mild, moist climate is ideal for vegetation and type of clover called shamrock grows everywhere. This three-leafed plant has become a symbol of Irish heritage and many people wear green shamrocks on SA. Patrick’s Day in March, 17.
6. In fact, green is colour everywhere associated with St. Patrick’s Day; both in United States and in Ireland, people wear something green on this holiday. At one time, a person who wasn’t wearing green on ST. Patrick’s Day got a little pinch (=pick at) from anyone who caught him or her.
7. There is also a funny custom to make or buy ‘ST. Patrick’s snake’ on this day. You might not want to have a real snake hissing in your room, but a cute stiffed toy will be lovely. It’ll stay where you put it any guard you against draughts on cold, windy nights. The snake can fill the gaps under your door or a window and keep you from getting chilled. That’s why it is called ‘the chill-chaser’. If you have your green St. Patrick’s snake the holidays keeps going all the year round.

Задание 11

В3

1. It was difficult to be beautiful
2. Attractive eyes
3. The modern standard of beauty
4. Different views on beauty
5. A gentleman of the past
6. An example to follow
7. The fatter the better
8. Unusual beauties

1. Cindy Crawford, a supermodel in the 1990s was the perfect American dream girl: slim tanned and natural – looking, with long, shiny hair. People have described her as `The face of the decade`. A lot of girls all over the world dreamt to look like her and did everything to realize their dreams.
2. But people have not always had the same idea about beauty. Until the 1920s, suntans were for poor people, `ladies` stayed out of the sun to keep their faces as pale as possible. In the times of Queen Elizabeth I of England fashionable ladies even painted their faces with lead to make them white – a very dangerous habit, since lead is poisonous.
3. And people in the eighteen century would not have thought much of Cindy Crawford`s hair! Ladies in those days never went out without their wigs, which were so enormous and dirty that it was quite common to find mice living in them. As for the `perfect beauties` painted by Rubens in the 17th century, if they wanted to be supermodels today, they would need to spend months on a diet!
4. Ideas of beauty can be very different according to where you live in the world, too. For the Paduang tribe in South East Asia, traditionally, the most important sign of female beauty was a long neck. So at the age of five and six girls received their first neck ring, and each year they added new rings. By the time they were old enough to marry; their necks were about twenty five centimeters long.
5. And what about the ideal man? If you ask people today to name an attractive man, most of them would mention someone like James Bond, Harrison Ford; someone tall and athletic, brave and `manly`. Of course, beautiful charming smile is also very important.
6. In the 18th century however, `manliness` was very different from what it is today. As well as wearing wigs, perfume and lots of make-up, a true gentleman showed that he had feelings by crying frequently in public. According to one story, when the British Prime Minister, Lord Spencer Percival
7. And even now, Games Bond might not find it so easy to attract women if he visited the Dinka tribe of Sudan! They have always believed in the saying that `big is beautiful`. Traditionally, each year, men compete to win the title of `the fattest man`. The winner is sure to find a wife quickly; for a Dinka woman, if a man is fat, it is also the sign that he is rich and powerful!

Задание 12

B3

Прочитайте тексты и установите соответствие между заголовками 1-8 и текстами A-G. Занесите свои ответы в таблицу. Используйте каждую букву только один раз. В задании есть один лишний заголовок.

1. Parts of the body                                        

2. Regional English                                        

3. Sport                                                          

4. Shopping for clothes  

5. Body Language

6. Fashion

7. Language Development

8. Manners

A.    People are taught to say “thank you” or “thanks” when somebody has given them something or done something for them. In a shop many British people say “thank you” several times at the checkout, when the operator tells them the total cost of their goods and when he or she gives them their change or gives back their credit cards.

B.      During World War 1 women began wearing  shorter skirts and bared their legs. Soon they began wearing trousers. Men’s suits became looser and were worn with a long tie. During the 1960s women wore miniskirts. Jeans and T-shirts became popular with both men and women.

C.    Many people in Britain buy their clothes in chain stores or department stores. There is a traditional department store, Marks & Spencer, which is popular with people of all ages. To the British, clothes here are typical of the middle range: they are neither cheap nor expensive, fairly good quality and rather conservative.

D.    Some words and phrases used in cricket have become idioms with a wider use. An unfair action may be described as “not cricket”, because cricket is used to be thought of as a gentleman’s sport and high standards of behavior were expected from players. The idiom is rather old-fashioned, because the language is always changing, but it is still used humorously.

E.      Modern dialects come from Old English. The Old East Midlands dialect later became standard English, while others became dialects spoken today in various parts of Britain. Most British people can recognize Cockney, a London dialect of the working class. The northern Geordie dialect shares many features with Scottish English.

F.      A finger held to the lips means “Be quiet!” If you stick your fingers in your ears, you cannot stand the noise of something. Lifting the arm is used to attract attention. People clap their hands to show they are pleased about something. If you stand with your hands on your hips, you are angry. Children stick their tongues to show they do not like somebody, but this is rude.

G.   Our team won after a long and breath-taking fight. The only goal was scored at the 82nd minute of the match by the young halfback Sean Smorret.

Задания на лексику и грамматику

Задание 1

Прочитайте приведенный ниже текст. Преобразуйте слова, напечатанные заглавными буквами в конце строк, обозначенных номерами  B4-B12,так, чтобы они грамматически соответствовали содержанию текста. Заполните пропуски полученными словами. Каждый пропуск соответствует отдельному заданию B4-B12.

Прочитайте приведенный ниже текст. Преобразуйте слова, напечатанные заглавными буквами в конце строк, обозначенных номерами  B13-B18,так, чтобы они грамматически и лексически соответствовали содержанию текста. Заполните пропуски полученными словами. Каждый пропуск соответствует отдельному заданию B13-B18.

Задание 2

Прочитайте приведенный ниже текст. Преобразуйте слова, напечатанные заглавными буквами в конце строк, обозначенных номерами  B4-B12,так, чтобы они грамматически соответствовали содержанию текста. Заполните пропуски полученными словами. Каждый пропуск соответствует отдельному заданию B4-B12.

Прочитайте приведенный ниже текст. Преобразуйте слова, напечатанные заглавными буквами в конце строк, обозначенных номерами  B13-B18,так, чтобы они грамматически и лексически соответствовали содержанию текста. Заполните пропуски полученными словами. Каждый пропуск соответствует отдельному заданию B13-B18.

Задание 3

Прочитайте приведенный ниже текст. Преобразуйте слова,напечатанные заглавными буквами в конце строк, обозначенных номерами B4–B12, так, чтобы они грамматически соответствовали содержанию текста. Заполните пропуски полученными словами. Каждый пропуск соответствует отдельному заданию B4–B12.

Прочитайте приведенный ниже текст. Преобразуйте слова,напечатанные заглавными буквами в конце строк, обозначенныхномерами B13–B18,так, чтобы они грамматически и лексическисоответствовали содержанию текста. Заполните пропуски полученными словами. Каждый пропуск соответствует отдельному заданию B13–B18.

Задание 4

Прочитайте приведенный ниже текст. Преобразуйте слова, напечатанные заглавными буквами в конце строк, обозначенных номерами В4–В12, так, чтобы они грамматически соответствовали содержанию текста. Заполните пропуски полученными словами. Каждый пропуск соответствует отдельному заданию В4–В12.

Прочитайте приведенный ниже текст. Преобразуйте слова, напечатанные заглавными буквами в конце строк, обозначенных номерами В13–В18, так, чтобы они грамматически и лексически соответствовали содержанию текста. Заполните пропуски полученными словами. Каждый пропуск соответствует отдельному заданию В13 – В18.

Задание 5

Прочитайте приведенный ниже текст. Преобразуйте слова, напечатанные заглавными буквами в конце строк, обозначенных номерами В4–В12, так, чтобы они грамматически соответствовали содержанию текста. Заполните пропуски полученными словами. Каждый пропуск соответствует отдельному заданию В4–В12.

Прочитайте приведенный ниже текст. Преобразуйте слова, напечатанные заглавными буквами в конце строк, обозначенных номерами В13–В18, так, чтобы они грамматически и лексически соответствовали содержанию текста. Заполните пропуски полученными словами. Каждый пропуск соответствует отдельному заданию В13–В18.

Задание 6

Прочитайте приведенный ниже текст. Преобразуйте слова, напечатанные заглавными буквами в конце строк, обозначенных номерами B4–B12, так, чтобы они грамматически соответствовали содержанию текста. Заполните пропуски полученными словами. Каждый пропуск соответствует отдельному заданию B4–B12.

Прочитайте приведенный ниже текст. Преобразуйте слова, напечатанные заглавными буквами в конце строк, обозначенных номерами B13–B18, так, чтобы они грамматически и лексически соответствовали содержанию текста. Заполните пропуски полученными словами. Каждый пропуск соответствует отдельному заданию B13–B18.

Задание 7

Прочитайте приведённый ниже текст. Преобразуйте слова, напечатанные заглавными буквами в конце строк, обозначенных номерами B4–B12, так, чтобы они грамматически соответствовали содержанию текста. Заполните пропуски полученными словами. Каждый пропуск соответствует отдельному заданию B4–B12.

Прочитайте приведенный ниже текст. Преобразуйте слова, напечатанные заглавными буквами в конце строк, обозначенных номерами B13–B18, так, чтобы они грамматически и лексически соответствовали содержанию текста. Заполните пропуски полученными словами. Каждый пропуск соответствует отдельному заданию B13–B18.

Задание 8

Прочитайте приведенный ниже текст. Преобразуйте слова, напечатанные заглавными буквами в конце строк, обозначенных номерами B13–B18, так, чтобы они грамматически и лексически соответствовали содержанию текста. Заполните пропуски полученными словами. Каждый пропуск соответствует отдельному заданию B13–B18.

Задание 9

Прочитайте приведенный ниже текст. Преобразуйте слова,напечатанные заглавными буквами в конце строк, обозначенных номерами B4–B12, так, чтобы они грамматически соответствовали содержанию текста. Заполните пропуски полученными словами. Каждый пропуск соответствует отдельному заданию B4–B12.

 Прочитайте приведенный ниже текст. Преобразуйте слова, напечатанные заглавными буквами в конце строк, обозначенных номерами B13–B18,так, чтобы они грамматически и лексически соответствовали содержанию текста. Заполните пропуски полученными словами. Каждый пропуск соответствует отдельному заданию B13–B18.

Задание 10

Прочитайте приведенный ниже текст. Преобразуйте слова, напечатанные заглавными буквами в конце строк, обозначенных номерами  B4-B12,так, чтобы они грамматически соответствовали содержанию текста. Заполните пропуски полученными словами. Каждый пропуск соответствует отдельному заданию B4-B12.

Прочитайте приведенный ниже текст. Преобразуйте слова, напечатанные заглавными буквами в конце строк, обозначенных номерами  B13-B18,так, чтобы они грамматически и лексически соответствовали содержанию текста. Заполните пропуски полученными словами. Каждый пропуск соответствует отдельному заданию B13-B18.

Задание 11

Прочитайте приведенный ниже текст. Преобразуйте слова, напечатанные заглавными буквами в конце строк, обозначенных номерами  B4-B12,так, чтобы они грамматически соответствовали содержанию текста. Заполните пропуски полученными словами. Каждый пропуск соответствует отдельному заданию B4-B12.

Прочитайте приведенный ниже текст. Преобразуйте слова, напечатанные заглавными буквами в конце строк, обозначенных номерами  B13-B18,так, чтобы они грамматически и лексически соответствовали содержанию текста. Заполните пропуски полученными словами. Каждый пропуск соответствует отдельному заданию B13-B18.

Задание 12

Прочитайте приведенный ниже текст. Преобразуйте слова, напечатанные заглавными буквами в конце строк, обозначенных номерами  B4-B12, так, чтобы они грамматически соответствовали содержанию текста. Заполните пропуски полученными словами. Каждый пропуск соответствует отдельному заданию B4-B12.

Прочитайте приведенный ниже текст. Преобразуйте слова,напечатанные заглавными буквами в конце строк, обозначенныхномерами B13–B18,так, чтобы они грамматически и лексическисоответствовали содержанию текста. Заполните пропуски полученными словами. Каждый пропуск соответствует отдельному заданию B13–B18.

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Прочитайте текст. Определите, какие из приведённых утверждений 10–17 соответствуют содержанию текста (1 – True), какие не соответствуют (2 – False) и о чём в тексте не сказано, то есть на основании текста нельзя дать ни положительного, ни отрицательного ответа (3 – Not stated). В поле ответа запишите одну цифру, которая соответствует номеру правильного ответа.

The giant panda

The giant panda also known as panda bear or simply panda, is a bear native to south central China. It is easily recognized by the large, distinctive black patches around its eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. The name «giant panda» is sometimes used to distinguish it from the unrelated red panda. Though it belongs to the carnivore, the giant panda’s diet is over 99 % bamboo. Giant pandas in the wild will occasionally eat other grasses, wild tubers, or even meat in the form of birds, rodents or carrion. In captivity, they may receive honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, or bananas along with specially prepared food. Pandas eat any of 25 bamboo species in the wild, such as Fargesia dracocephala and Fargesia rufa. Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high environment pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less.

The giant panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in neighboring provinces, namely Shaanxi and Gansu. As a result of farming, deforestation, and other development, the giant panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived.

The giant panda is one of the endangered species. A 2007 report shows 239 pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. As of December 2014, 49 giant pandas live in captivity outside China, living in 18 zoos in 13 different countries. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals liv-ing in the wild, while a 2006 study estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of giant pandas in the wild is on the rise.

While the dragon has often served as China’s national emblem, internationally the giant panda appears at least as commonly. As such, it is becoming widely used within China in international contexts, for example as one of the five mascots of the Beijing Olympics.

The giant panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Giant pandas are generally solitary, and each adult has a defined territory, and a female is not tolerant of other females in her range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees. They are able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rocks, but do not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory.

Pandas have been kept in zoos as early as there was the Western Han Dynasty in China, where the writer Sima Xiangru noted that the panda was the most treasured animal in the emperor’s garden of exotic animals in the capital Chang’an. Not until the 1950s were pandas again recorded to have been exhibited in China’s zoos.

Chi Chi panda at the London Zoo became very popular. This influenced the World Wildlife Fund to use a panda as its symbol.

A 2006 New York Times article outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos generally pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typical ten-year contract. The last contract, with the Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, ended in 2013.

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CHAPTER I
IN WHICH I APPEAR WITH FEW PRETENSIONS

As the storm broke and a shower of hail rattled like a handful of pebbles against our little window, I choked back a sob and edged my small green-painted stool a trifle nearer the hearth. On the opposite side of the wire fender, my father kicked off his wet boots, stretched his feet, in grey yarn stockings, out on the rag carpet in front of the fire, and reached for his pipe which he had laid, still smoking, on the floor under his chair.

«It’s as true as the Bible, Benjy,» he said, «that on the day you were born yo’ brother President traded off my huntin’ breeches for a yaller pup.»

My knuckles went to my eyes, while the smart of my mother’s slap faded from the cheek I had turned to the fire.

«What’s become o’ th’ p-p-up-p?» I demanded, as I stared up at him with my mouth held half open in readiness to break out again.

«Dead,» responded my father solemnly, and I wept aloud.

It was an October evening in my childhood, and so vivid has my later memory of it become that I can still see the sheets of water that rolled from the lead pipe on our roof, and can still hear the splash! splash! with which they fell into the gutter below. For three days the clouds had hung in a grey curtain over the city, and at dawn a high wind, blowing up from the river, had driven the dead leaves from the churchyard like flocks of startled swallows into our little street. Since morning I had watched them across my mother’s «prize» red geranium upon our window-sill – now whipped into deep swirls and eddies over the sunken brick pavement, now rising in sighing swarms against the closed doors of the houses, now soaring aloft until they flew almost as high as the living swallows in the belfry of old Saint John’s. Then as the dusk fell, and the street lamps glimmered like blurred stars through the rain, I drew back into our little sitting-room, which glowed bright as an ember against the fierce weather outside.

Half an hour earlier my father had come up from the marble yard, where he spent his days cutting lambs and doves and elaborate ivy wreaths in stone, and the smell from his great rubber coat, which hung drying before the kitchen stove, floated with the aroma of coffee through the half-open door. When I closed an eye and peeped through the crack, I could see my mother’s tall shadow, shifting, not flitting, on the whitewashed wall of the kitchen, as she passed back and forth from the stove to the wooden cradle in which my little sister Jessy lay asleep, with the head of her rag doll in her mouth.

Outside the splash! splash! of the rain still sounded on the brick pavement, and as I glanced through the window, I saw an old blind negro beggar groping under the street lamp at the corner. The muffled beat of his stick in the drenched leaves passed our doorstep, and I heard it grow gradually fainter as he turned in the direction of the negro hovels that bordered our end of the town. Across the street, and on either side of us, there were rows of small boxlike frame houses built with narrow doorways, which opened from the sidewalk into funny little kitchens, where women, in soiled calico dresses, appeared to iron all day long. It was the poorer quarter of what is known in Richmond as «Church Hill,» a portion of the city which had been left behind in the earlier fashionable progress westward. Between us and modern Richmond there were several high hills, up which the poor dripping horses panted on summer days, a railroad station, and a broad slum-like bottom vaguely described as the «Old Market.» Our prosperity, with our traditions, had crumbled around us, yet there were still left the ancient church, with its shady graveyard, and an imposing mansion or two inherited from the forgotten splendour of former days. The other Richmond – that «up-town» I heard sometimes mentioned – I had never seen, for my early horizon was bounded by the green hill, by the crawling salmon-coloured James River at its foot, and by the quaint white belfry of the parish of old St. John’s. Beneath that belfry I had made miniature graves on summer afternoons, and as I sat now opposite to my father, with the bright fire between us, the memory of those crumbling vaults made me hug myself in the warmth, while I edged nearer the great black kettle singing before the flames.

«Pa,» I asked presently, with an effort to resume the conversation along cheerful lines, «was it a he or a she pup?»

My father turned his bright blue eyes from the fire, while his hand wandered, with an habitual gesture, to his coarse straw-coloured hair which stood, like mine, straight up from the forehead.

«Wall, I’ll be blessed if I can recollect, Benjy,» he replied, and added after a moment, in which I knew that his slow wits were working over a fresh attempt at distraction, «but speaking of dawgs, it wouldn’t surprise me if yo’ ma was to let you have a b’iled egg for yo’ supper.»

Again the storm was averted. He was so handsome, so soft, so eager to make everybody happy, that although he did not deceive even my infant mind for a minute, I felt obliged by sheer force of sympathy to step into the amiable snare he laid.

«Hard or soft?» I demanded.

«Now that’s a matter of ch’ice, ain’t it?» he rejoined, wrinkling his forehead as if awed by the gravity of the decision; «but bein’ a plain man with a taste for solids, I’d say ‘hard’ every time.»

«Hard, ma,» I repeated gravely through the crack of the door to the shifting shape on the kitchen wall. Then, while he stooped over in the firelight to prod fresh tobacco into his pipe, I began again my insatiable quest for knowledge which had brought me punishment at the hand of my mother an hour before.

«Pa, who named me?»

«Yo’ ma.»

«Did ma name you, too?»

He shook his head, doubtfully, not negatively. Above his short growth of beard his cheeks had warmed to a clear pink, and his foolish blue eyes were as soft as the eyes of a baby.

«Wall, I can’t say she did that – exactly.»

«Then who did name you?»

«I don’t recollect. My ma, I reckon.»

«Did ma name me Ben Starr, or just Ben?»

«Just Ben. You were born Starr.»

«Was she born Starr, too?»

«Good Lord, no, she was born Savage.»

«Then why warn’t I born Savage?»

«Because she married me an’ I was born Starr.»

I gave it up with a sigh. «Who had the most to do with my comin’ here, God or ma?» I asked after a minute.

My father hesitated as if afraid of committing himself to an heretical utterance. «I ain’t so sure,» he replied at last, and added immediately in a louder tone, «Yo’ ma, I s’pose.»

«Then why don’t I say my prayers to ma instead of to God?»

«I wouldn’t begin to worry over that at my age, if I were you,» replied my father, with angelic patience, «seein’ as it’s near supper time an’ the kettle’s a-bilin’.»

«But I want to know, pa, why it was that I came to be named just Ben?»

«To be named just Ben?» he repeated slowly, as if the fact had been brought for the first time to his attention. «Wall, I reckon ’twas because we’d had considerable trouble over the namin’ of the first, which was yo’ brother President. That bein’ the turn of the man of the family, I calculated that as a plain American citizen, I couldn’t do better than show I hadn’t any ill feelin’ agin the Government. I don’t recollect just what the name of the gentleman at the head of the Nation was, seein’ ’twas goin’ on sixteen years ago, but I’d made up my mind to call the infant in the cradle arter him, if he’d ever answered my letter – which he never did. It was then yo’ ma an’ I had words because she didn’t want a child of hers named arter such a bad-mannered, stuck-up, ornary sort, President or no President. She raised a terrible squall, but I held out against her,» he went on, dropping his voice, «an’ I stood up for it that as long as ’twas the office an’ not the man I was complimentin’, I’d name him arter the office, which I did on the spot. When ’twas over an’ done the notion got into my head an’ kind of tickled me, an’ when you came at last, arter the four others in between, that died befo’ they took breath, I was a’ready to name you ‘Governor’ if yo’ ma had been agreeable. But ’twas her turn, so she called you arter her Uncle Benjamin – «

«What’s become o’ Uncle Benjamin?» I interrupted.

«Dead,» responded my father, and for the third time I wept.

«I declar’ that child’s been goin’ on like that for the last hour,» remarked my mother, appearing upon the threshold. «Thar, thar, Benjy boy, stop cryin’ an’ I’ll let you go to old Mr. Cudlip’s burial to-morrow.»

«May I go, too, ma?» enquired President, who had come in with a lighted lamp in his hand. He was a big, heavy, overgrown boy, and his head was already on a level with his father’s.

«Not if I know it,» responded my mother tartly, for her temper was rising and she looked tired and anxious. «I’ll take Benjy along because he can crowd in an’ nobody’ll mind.»

She moved a step nearer while her shadow loomed to gigantic proportions on the whitewashed wall. Her thin brown hair, partially streaked with grey, was brushed closely over her scalp, and this gave her profile an angularity that became positively grotesque in the shape behind her. Across her forehead there were three deep frowning wrinkles, which did not disappear even when she smiled, and her sad, flint-coloured eyes held a perplexed and anxious look, as if she were trying always to remember something which was very important and which she had half forgotten. I had never seen her, except when she went to funerals, dressed otherwise than in a faded grey calico with a faded grey shawl crossed tightly over her bosom and drawn to the back of her waist, where it was secured by a safety pin of an enormous size. Beside her my father looked so young and so amiable that I had a confused impression that he had shrunk to my own age and importance. Then my mother retreated into the kitchen and he resumed immediately his natural proportions. After thirty years, when I think now of that ugly little room, with its painted pine furniture, with its coloured glass vases, filled with dried cat-tails, upon the mantelpiece, with its crude red and yellow print of a miniature David attacking a colossal Goliath, with its narrow window-panes, where beyond the «prize» red geranium the wind drove the fallen leaves over the brick pavement, with its staring whitewashed walls, and its hideous rag carpet – when I think of these vulgar details it is to find that they are softened in my memory by a sense of peace, of shelter, and of warm firelight shadows.

My mother had just laid the supper table, over which I had watched her smooth the clean red and white cloth with her twisted fingers; President was proudly holding aloft a savoury dish of broiled herrings, and my father had pinned on my bib and drawn back the green-painted chair in which I sat for my meals – when a hurried knock at the door arrested each one of us in his separate attitude as if he had been instantly petrified by the sound.

There was a second’s pause, and then before my father could reach it, the door opened and shut violently, and a woman, in a dripping cloak, holding a little girl by the hand, came from the storm outside, and ran straight to the fire, where she stood shaking the child’s wet clothes before the flames. As the light fell over them, I saw that the woman was young and delicate and richly dressed, with a quantity of pale brown hair which the rain and wind had beaten flat against her small frightened face. At the time she was doubtless an unusually pretty creature to a grown-up pair of eyes, but my gaze, burning with curiosity, passed quickly over her to rest upon the little girl, who possessed for me the attraction of my own age and size. She wore red shoes, I saw at my first glance, and a white cloak, which I took to be of fur, though it was probably made of some soft, fuzzy cloth I had never seen. There was a white cap on her head, held by an elastic band under her square little chin, and about her shoulders her hair lay in a profuse, drenched mass of brown, which reminded me in the firelight of the colour of wet November leaves. She was soaked through, and yet as she stood there, with her teeth chattering in the warmth, I was struck by the courage, almost the defiance, with which she returned my gaze. Baby that she was, I felt that she would scorn to cry while my glance was upon her, though there were fresh tear marks on her flushed cheeks, and around her solemn grey eyes that were made more luminous by her broad, heavily arched black eyebrows, which gave her an intense and questioning look. The memory of this look, which was strange in so young a child, remained with me after the colour of her hair and every charming feature in her face were forgotten. Years afterwards I think I could have recognised her in a crowded street by the mingling of light with darkness, of intense black with clear grey, in her sparkling glance.

«I followed the wrong turn,» said the pale little woman, breathing hard with a pitiable, frightened sound, while my mother took her dripping cloak from her shoulders, «and I could not keep on because of the rain which came up so heavily. If I could only reach the foot of the hill I might find a carriage to take me up-town.»

My father had sprung forward as she entered, and was vigorously stirring the fire, which blazed and crackled merrily in the open grate. She accepted thankfully my mother’s efforts to relieve her of her wet wraps, but the little girl drew back haughtily when she was approached, and refused obstinately to slip out of her cloak, from which the water ran in streams to the floor.

«I don’t like it here, mamma, it is a common place,» she said, in a clear childish voice, and though I hardly grasped the meaning of her words, her tone brought to me for the first time a feeling of shame for my humble surroundings.

«Hush, Sally,» replied her mother, «you must dry yourself. These people are very kind.»

«But I thought we were going to grandmama’s?»

«Grandmama lives up-town, and we are going as soon as the storm has blown over. There, be a good girl and let the little boy take your wet cap.»

«I don’t want him to take my cap. He is a common boy.»

In spite of the fact that she seemed to me to be the most disagreeable little girl I had ever met, the word she had used was lodged unalterably in my memory. In that puzzled instant, I think, began my struggle to rise out of the class in which I belonged by birth; and I remember that I repeated the word «common» in a whisper to myself, while I resolved that I would learn its meaning in order that I might cease to be the unknown thing that it implied.

My mother, who had gone into the kitchen with the dripping cloak in her arms, returned a moment later with a cup of steaming coffee in one hand and a mug of hot milk in the other.

«It’s a mercy if you haven’t caught your death with an inner chill,» she observed in a brisk, kindly tone. «‘Twas the way old Mr. Cudlip, whose funeral I’m going to to-morrow, came to his end, and he was as hale, red-faced a body as you ever laid eyes on.»

The woman received the cup gratefully, and I could see her poor thin hands tremble as she raised it to her lips.

«Drink the warm milk, dear,» she said pleadingly to the disagreeable little girl, who shook her head and drew back with a stiff childish gesture.

«I’m not hungry, thank you,» she replied to my mother in her sweet, clear treble. To all further entreaties she returned the same answer, standing there a haughty, though drenched and battered infant, in her soiled white cloak and her red shoes, holding her mop of a muff tightly in both hands.

«I’m not hungry, thank you,» she repeated, adding presently in a manner of chill politeness, «give it to the boy.»

But the boy was not hungry either, and when my mother, finally taking her at her word, turned, in exasperation, and offered the mug to me, I declined it, also, and stood nervously shifting from one foot to the other, while my hands caught and twisted the fringe of the table-cloth at my back. The big grey eyes of the little girl looked straight into mine, but there was no hint in them that she was aware of my existence. Though her teeth were chattering, and she knew I heard them, she did not relax for an instant from her scornful attitude.

«We were just about to take a mouthful of supper, mum, an’ we’d be proud if you an’ the little gal would jine us,» remarked my father, with an eager hospitality.

«I thank you,» replied the woman in her pretty, grateful manner, «but the coffee has restored my strength, and if you will direct me to the hill, I shall be quite able to go on again.»

A step passed close to the door on the pavement outside, and I saw her start and clutch the child to her bosom with trembling hands. As she stood there in her shaking terror, I remembered a white kitten I had once seen chased by boys into the area of a deserted house.

«If – if anyone should come to enquire after me, will you be so good as to say nothing of my having been here?» she asked.

«To be sure I will, with all the pleasure in life,» responded my father, who, it was evident even to me, had become a victim to her distressed loveliness.

Emboldened by the effusive politeness of my parent, I went up to the little girl and shyly offered her a blossom from my mother’s geranium upon the window-sill. A scrap of a hand, as cold as ice when it touched mine, closed over the stem of the flower, and without looking at me, she stood, very erect, with the scarlet geranium grasped stiffly between her fingers.

«I’ll take you to the bottom of the hill myself,» protested my father, «but I wish you could persuade yourself to try a bite of food befo’ you set out in the rain.»

«It is important that I should lose no time,» answered the woman, drawing her breath quickly through her small white teeth, «but I fear that I am taking you away from your supper?»

«Not at all, you will not deprive me in the least,» stammered my father, blushing up to his ears, while his straight flaxen hair appeared literally to rise with embarrassment. «I – I – the fact is I’m not an eater, mum.»

For an instant, remembering the story of Ananias I had heard in Sunday-school, I looked round in terror, half expecting to hear the dreadful feet of the young men on the pavement. But he passed scathless for the hour at least, and our visitor had turned to receive her half-dried cloak from my mother’s hands, when her face changed suddenly to a more deadly pallor, and seizing the little girl by the shoulder, she fled, like a small frightened animal, across the threshold into the kitchen.

My father’s hand had barely reached the knob of the street door, when it opened and a man in a rubber coat entered, and stopped short in the centre of the room, where he stood blinking rapidly in the lamplight. I heard the rain drip with a soft pattering sound from his coat to the floor, and when he wheeled about, after an instant in which his glance searched the room, I saw that his face was flushed and his eyes swimming and bloodshot. There was in his look, as I remember it now, something of the inflamed yet bridled cruelty of a bird of prey.

«Have you noticed a lady with a little girl go by?» he enquired.

At his question my father fell back a step or two until he stood squarely planted before the door into the kitchen. Though he was a big man, he was not so big as the other, who towered above the dried cat-tails in a china vase on the mantelpiece.

«Are you sure they did not pass here?» asked the stranger, and as he turned his head the dried pollen was loosened from the cat-tails and drifted in an ashen dust to the hearth.

«No, I’ll stake my word on that. They ain’t passed here yet,» replied my father.

With an angry gesture the other shook his rubber coat over our bright little carpet, and passed out again, slamming the door violently behind him. Running to the window, I lifted the green shade, and watched his big black figure splashing recklessly through the heavy puddles under the faint yellowish glimmer of the street lamp at the comer. The light flickered feebly on his rubber coat and appeared to go out in the streams of water that fell from his shoulders.

When I looked round I saw that the woman had come back into the room, still grasping the little girl by the hand.

«No, no, I must go at once. It is necessary that I should go at once,» she repeated breathlessly, looking up in a dazed way into my mother’s face.

«If you must you must, an’ what ain’t my business ain’t,» replied my mother a trifle sharply, while she wrapped a grey woollen comforter of her own closely over the head and shoulders of the little girl, «but if you’d take my advice, which you won’t, you’d turn this minute an’ walk straight back home to yo’ husband.»

But the woman only shook her head with its drenched mass of soft brown hair.

«We must go, Sally, mustn’t we?» she said to the child.

«Yes, we must go, mamma,» answered the little girl, still grasping the stem of the red geranium between her fingers.

«That bein’ the case, I’ll get into my coat with all the pleasure in life an’ see you safe,» remarked my father, with a manner that impressed me as little short of the magnificent.

«But I hate to take you away from home on such a terrible night.»

«Oh, don’t mention the weather,» responded my gallant parent, while he struggled into his rubber shoes; and he added quite handsomely, after a flourish which appeared to set the elements at defiance, «arter all, weather is only weather, mum.»

As nobody, not even my mother, was found to challenge the truth of this statement, the child was warmly wrapped up in an old blanket shawl, and my father lifted her in his arms, while the three set out under a big cotton umbrella for the brow of the hill. President and I peered after them from the window, screening our eyes with our hollowed palms, and flattening our noses against the icy panes; but in spite of our efforts we could only discern dimly the shape of the umbrella rising like a miniature black mountain out of the white blur of the fog. The long empty street with the wind-drifts of dead leaves, the pale glimmer of the solitary light at the far corner, the steady splash! splash! of the rain as it fell on the brick pavement, the bitter draught that blew in over the shivering geranium upon the sill – all these brought a lump to my throat, and I turned back quickly into our cheerful little room, where my untasted supper awaited me.

The surface of the globe is forty percentoccupy the mountains. This is a form of relief, representing a sharp rise among the rest of the territory, with significant differences in altitude — up to several kilometers. Sometimes the mountains have a fairly clear line of the sole at the slope, but more often — the foothills.

Find folded mountains on the map is very simple,because the mountains as such are everywhere, on absolutely all continents and even on every island. Somewhere there are more, somewhere — less, as, for example, in Australia. In Antarctica, they hide the ice layer. The highest (and youngest) system of mountains is the Himalayas, the longest — the Andes, which stretched across all South America for seven and a half thousand kilometers.

How old is the mountain

The mountains are like people, they too can be young, mature and old. But if the people the younger, the smoother, then the mountains all the way around: a sharp relief and large heights indicate a young age.

In the old mountains and the relief is worn, smoothed, and the heights are not with such large swings. For example, the Pamirs are young mountains, and the Ural mountains are old, any map will show.

Characteristics of the relief

Folded mountains have an integrated structure, but forThe most detailed survey should know the principles by which a general characterization of the relief is compiled. This applies not only to high mountains, but also literally meter deviations from the state of flat land — this is the so-called mountain microrelief. From the ability to properly classify and depends on the exact knowledge of what mountains are.

Here it is necessary to consider such elements asfoots, valleys, slopes, moraines, passes, ridges, peaks, glaciers and many others, since on the earth there are various, including folded mountains.

Classification of mountains in height

The height can be classified very simply — only three groups:

• Lowlands with a height of not more than a kilometer. Most often these are old mountains, destroyed by time, or very young, gradually growing. They have rounded peaks, gentle slopes on which trees grow. Such mountains are on every continent.
• Middle Highlands in height from a thousand to three thousand meters. Here, another, changing landscape, depending on the height — the so-called altitude zonality. Such mountains — in Siberia and the Far East, the Apennine, the Iberian Peninsula, Scandinavian, Appalachian and many others.
• Highlands — more than three thousand meters. It is always young mountains, prone to weathering, the effects of temperature changes and the growth of glaciers. Characteristic features: the troughs — the troughs of the valleys, the carlings — the sharp peaks, the glacial circuses — like bowls deepening on the slopes. Here the altitude is marked by belts — the forest at the foot, the icy deserts closer to the peaks. The term generalizing these characteristics is the «alpine landscape». The Alps are a very young mountain system, like the Himalayas, the Karakorum, the Andes, the Rocky and other folded mountains.

Classification of mountains by geographical location

The geographical position divides the relief intoMountain ranges, mountain systems, mountain groups, mountain chains and solitary mountains. Of the largest formations are the mountain belts: the Alpine-Himalayan — across the whole of Eurasia, the Andijan-Cordillera — across the Americas.

Slightly less — a mountainous country, that is, manyunited mountain systems. In turn, the mountain system consists of groups of mountains and ridges of the same age, most often folded mountains. Examples: Appalachian, Sangre de Cristo.

The group of mountains differs from the ridge in that it does notbuilds its tops in a narrow long stripe. Solitary mountains are often of volcanic origin. By the form of the tops are divided into piciform, plate-like, domed and some others. Submarine mountains can form their islands with their peaks.

Formation of mountains

Orogenesis is the most complicated of processes, as a result of which rocks are creased into folds. What is folded mountains, scientists know reliably, but how they appeared — only hypotheses are considered.

• Hypothesis one — oceanic depressions. It can be clearly seen on the map that all mountain systemslocated on the outskirts of the continents. Hence, the continental rocks are lighter than the bottom rocks of the ocean. The movements inside the Earth seem to squeeze the continent out of its interior, and the folded mountains are the bottom surfaces that emerged on the dry land. This theory has many opponents. For example, folded mountains — this is the Himalayas, which are clearly not bottom, as they are on the mainland. And according to this hypothesis it is impossible to explain the existence of depressions — geosynclinal troughs.
• The hypothesis of Leopold Kober, He studied the geological structure of his Alps. These young mountains have not yet been subjected to destructive processes. It turned out that the tectonic large thrusts were formed by huge thicknesses of sedimentary rocks. Alpine mountains have clarified their origin, but this path is absolutely different from the appearance of other mountains, this theory has never been applied anywhere else.
• Drift of continents — a very popular theory, also subject to criticism, as not explaining the entire process of orogenesis.
• Subcortical currents in the bowels of the Earth cause deformation of the surface andform mountains. However, this hypothesis has not been proved. On the contrary, mankind does not even know such parameters as the temperature of the earth’s interior, let alone viscosity, fluidity and crystalline structure of deep rocks, compressive strength, and so on.
• Earth’s compression hypothesis — with its advantages and disadvantages. We do not know whether the planet accumulates heat or loses it if it loses — this theory is consistent if it does not accumulate.

What are the mountains

In the depressions of the earth’s crust, varioussedimentary rocks, which then crumpled and with the help of volcanic activity formed folded mountains. Examples: Appalachian Mountains on the east coast of North America, Zagros Mountains in Turkey.

Lumpy mountains appeared because of tectonicRaises over faults in the earth’s crust. As, for example, the Californian — the Sierra-Levada. But sometimes already formed folded suddenly begin to rise along the fault. So folded-blocky mountains are formed. The most typical are the Appalachians.

Those mountains that formed as folded stratarocks, but broke up with young faults into blocks and climbed to different heights, also folded-blocky. The Tien Shan Mountains, for example, as well as the Altai Mountains.

The arched mountains are a tectonic elevation plus erosion processes in a small area. These are the mountains of the Lake District in England, as well as the Black Hills, located in South Dakota.

Volcanic formed under the influence of lava. There are two types: volcanic cones (Fujiyama and other similar ones) and shield volcanoes (less high and not so symmetrical).

Mountain climate

The mountain climate is radically different from the climateany other territories. Temperatures drop more than half a degree, for every hundred meters of altitude. The wind is also usually very cold, which contributes to cloudiness. Frequent hurricanes.

With recruitment and atmospheric pressure decreases. On Mount Everest, for example, up to 250 millimeters of mercury. The water boils at eighty-six degrees.

The higher, the less vegetative cover, to its complete absence, and in the glaciers and snow caps there is practically no life.

Linear Zones

Thanks to the break-tectonic analysis,to make a definition of what folded mountains are, as a result of which they were formed and how dependent on deep planetary faults. All — both ancient and modern — mountain areas enter certain linear zones, which were formed only in two directions — north-west and northeast, repeating the direction of deep faults.

These belts are fringed with platforms. There is a dependence: the position and shape of the platform changes, and external forms change, and orientation in the space of folded belts. When forming the mountains, all is resolved by fault tectonics (blocks) of the crystalline base. Vertical movements of foundation blocks form folded mountains.

Examples of the Carpathians or the Verkhoyansk-Chukotka region show different types of tectonic movements in the formation of mountain folds. The Zagros mountains were also characteristic.

Geological structure

In the mountains everything is varied — from building tostructure. The rocks, for example, of the same Rockies vary throughout their entire length. In the northern part — Paleozoic shales and limestones, further — closer to Colorado — granites, magmatic rocks with Mesozoic sediments. Still further — in the central part — volcanic rocks, which in the northern areas do not exist. The same picture will be revealed if one considers the geological structure of many other mountain ranges.

They say that there are no two identical mountains, butvolcanic origin, arrays, for example, often have rows of similar characteristics. Correctness of the shape of the cone of Japanese and Philippine volcanoes, for example. But we will now begin a detailed geological analysis, we will see that the saying is quite right. Many of Japan’s volcanoes are composed of andesites (magma), and the Philippine rocks are basaltic, much heavier because of the high iron content. And the Oregon Cascade Mountains have combined their volcanoes with rhyolite (silica).

Formation time of folded mountains

The formation of mountains throughout the process took placedue to the development of geosynclines in various geological periods, even in the folding times to the Cambrian. But the modern mountains are only young (relatively, of course) — Cenozoic uplifts. The more ancient mountains were long ago leveled and were again raised by new tectonic movements in the form of blocks and arches.

Widget-blocky mountains are most often revived. They are as common as the younger ones, folded. Today’s Earth relief is neotectonics. It is possible to study folding, which formed tectonic structures, if we consider the difference in the age of the mountains, and not the relief created by it. If Cenozoic is recent, it is difficult to think about the age of the earliest mountain formations.

And only volcanic mountains can grow upright before your eyes — during the eruption. Eruptions most often occur in the same place, therefore each portion of lava builds up the mountain. In the center of the mainland, the volcano is a great rarity. They, as a rule, form whole underwater islands, often forming arcs several thousand kilometers long.

How the mountains die

The mountains could stand forever. But they are being killed, albeit slowly, when compared to human life. It, first of all, frosts, splitting the rock into small pieces. So screes are formed, which then snow or ice are demolished downward, building moraine ridges. It is water — rain, snow, hail — making its way through even such unbreakable walls. Water is collected in the rivers, which are arranged for themselves to wind between the mountain spurs of the valley. The history of the destruction of the unshakable mountains, of course, is long, but inevitable. And the glaciers! Whole spurs, it happens, they are completely cut off by them.

Such erosion gradually reduces mountains, turningthem in the plain: somewhere green, with deep-water rivers, somewhere deserted, sanding all the remaining hills. Such a surface of the Earth is called «Peneplain» — almost a plain. And, I must say, this stage is extremely rare. The mountains are reborn! The Earth’s crust starts to move again, the terrain rises, starting a new phase of terrain development.

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