TOPICS_TEXTS (Топики к экзамену)

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

English is a world language.

It is the language of progressive science and technology, trade and cultural relations, commerce and business. It is the universal language of international aviation, shipping and sports. It is also the major language of diplomacy.

Hundreds and hundreds of books, magazines and newspapers are printed in English and read all over the world. 75% of the world's mail and 60% of the world's telephone calls are in English. Half of the world's scientific literature is written in English.

English is spoken by more than 350 million people. Geographically, it is the most widespread language on earth, second only to Chinese in the number of people who speak it.

It is the official language of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, of the United States of America, of Australia and New Zealand. English is used as one of the official languages in Canada, the Republic of South Africa and the Irish Republic. It is also spoken as a second language in many parts of India and Africa. The number of second-language speakers may soon exceed the number of native speakers.

Besides, millions of people study and use English as a foreign language. In our country English is very popular: it is studied at schools (sometimes even at nursery schools), colleges and universities.

Learning a foreign language is not an easy thing. It is a long and slow process that takes a lot of time and patience. But to know English today is absolutely necessary for every educated person, for every good specialist.

I want to know foreign languages because I have always been interested in foreign countries, their cultures and peoples.

ABOUT MYSELF

I was born in 1987 in Moscow. I finished a secondary school in Moscow. Then I entered the Chemistry Department of the Moscow State University. Now I am a third-year student of M.V.Lomonosov Moscow State University.

The laboratory, where I work is well-equipped. I go there three times a week after my classes. I like my specialty very much.

I study English there too. I like the English language very much. I tend to study regularly and learn to speak English well.

On weekend I go to the cinema or the theatre.

MY FAMILY

My family is not very large. There are four of us: my father, my mother, my sister and I.

I have a large family: a father, a mother, a grandfather, grandmother, two sisters and a brother.

(We all live together.)

We are all great friends, and I love my father and my mother dearly.

Sometimes my uncle and my aunt come and see us.

My father is a doctor. He works in a hospital. He is very busy he has a lot of patients and does everything for them.

My mother is a book-keeper. She works at ah office. She too has a lot of work. Still she finds time to look after the house and to take care of all of us.

Both my sisters are schoolgirls. My brother is a student. He studies at the University. Every day he attends lectures. In January and June he takes examinations. He gets good and excellent marks in all the subjects.

When he graduates from the University he wants to work as geologist. My grandfather is retired from service. He has an old-age pension. Five years back he was still working. He worked at a plant as an engineer. My grandmother is still in very good health. She does most of the cooking. Of course my mother helps her so do my sisters.

In the evening we all come together and see the TV program or just talk about the events of the day.

My School (1)

I am a pupil of the 9th form of a secondary school in Moscow. Our school gives general education. When at school, children study Russian, Russian Literature, History and Social Sciences, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Geography and a foreign language. We also have classes in crafts for boys and home economics for girls, physical education, arts and music.

My school is not far from where I live. It takes me a 10-minute walk to get there. The school is not a big one. It occupies a modern three-storeyed building. On the ground floor, there is a gym, a canteen, a cloak room, workshops for boys and a home economics room for girls, where they learn to cook, sew and knit. Besides, there is a lot of classrooms for younger children on the ground floor.

On the first floor, there are classrooms for Maths, which have everything necessary for study. You can also find Physics and Chemistry labs and a room for Biology class there. They are very well-equipped and have all the devices and equipment for studying and making experiments in these subject fields. We also have two computer rooms.

We have language laboratories in our school, too. English has always been my favourite subject. I enjoy making up dialogues, having small-group discussions and even learning new phrases and grammar material. Unfortunately, my teacher says I'm not very good at communicating in English, though I can read, translate and retell texts quite well. But she also says I'm diligent and if I try hard, my spoken language will soon improve. Maths and physics come easy to me; I'm on the top of the list in our class, but these subjects are not so interesting to me.

We have classes five days a week. Classes begin at half past 8 and last till 2 or 3 in the afternoon. When classes are over, I seldom go home right away. I'm a member of the chess society and the tennis club and often stay after classes to train. There are other clubs and societies at our school, too, like the drama club and the maths society, but I prefer these two. I'm fond of sports because they help me keep fit.

I like my class because I always feel at home with my classmates. We often spend our free time together. I enjoy my studies, too. I'm sure I'll remember my schoolyears for the rest of my life.

My School (2)

Let me introduce myself. My name is Ekaterina Ivanova. I am a pupil of the 11th form of a secondary school in Moscow. Our school is a gymnasium. It offers a general course of academic and non-academic subjects, and gives secondary education. Besides, it offers a number of courses in a variety of fields: the humanities, mathematics, natural sciences. My school used to be a specialized school, offering a course of English. It had been known for its academic excellence. Some years ago it was reorganized in a gymnasium but, fortunately, the changes haven't led to lower teaching standards. Moreover, better trained teachers of Social Sciences, Russian and Literature have been employed. In my opinion, the quality of teaching at our school is much better now than it used to be.

I specialize in the humanities. The course I take includes Russian, Russian Literature, Social Sciences and two foreign languages - French and English. I've always liked social sciences and foreign languages.

My school is very well equipped. There are sporting facilities including a gym and a swimming pool on the ground floor, and a sports ground with a tennis court outside the school building. On the ground floor, we have a library with a reading hall, a language lab, a home economics room and a canteen. On the second floor, there is a large assembly hall and Physics, Chemistry and Biology labs. We have also several computer rooms where basic computer skills are taught.

We have classes 5 days a week, from half past 8 in the morning till 3 or 4 in the afternoon. After classes you can participate in extracurricular activities including all kinds of school clubs and societies. At our school you can be a member of a choir, an orchestra, an arts club, a track-and-field club, the English-Speaking Club and a drama club. I'm a member of the English-Speaking Club aiming at giving a deeper knowledge of the subject and developing communication skills. Our English-speaking club has a theatre, too, staging drama in English. I have enjoyed playing all the parts I've been given, though they have been minor. Frankly speaking, I'm not very good at acting, but I hope things'll improve.

English is my favourite subject. I enjoy dramatizing texts and dialogues, learning new words and grammar, setting up role plays or just communicating in English.

I like my class, too. I always feel at home there. Everybody is friendly and easy to get along with. I'm on good terms with most of my classmates, and we often spend our free time together.

I hope my school education will form a basis for my future occupation. It goes without saying that I'll need some extra knowledge to pass my entrance exams to the university. That is the reason why I take a preparatory course at the University.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll always remember my school years and the friendships I have made at school.

MY SCHOOL (3)

I've just left school and I would like to tell you a few words about it. My school is one of the oldest specialized schools in Moscow. It is famous for its high-quality education and strict discipline. The school is very well-equipped. On the ground floor there is a gym, a canteen, a library and workshops. On the first floor there is a large assembly hall, a home economics room, a computer class and a language laboratory. On the second floor there are physics, chemistry and biology labs.

I went to school five days a week. Classes began at nine o'clock in the morning. But I usually came to school ten minutes earlier. Each lesson lasted forty minutes. After three or four lessons we had a thirty-minute break. During this break we went to the canteen to have lunch. Every day we had 7 or 8 lessons. The lessons were over at four o'clock in the afternoon.

We usually had a lot of homework and it took me several hours to do it. I sometimes had to sit up to write a composition, to prepare a report, to translate a newspaper article from English into Russian or to learn a poem by heart.

After classes I usually didn't go home right away. We had some out-of-class activities. Our social and cultural life was well-organized. For example, we had an orchestra, a choir, an arts club, an International Friendship Club. I took part in the drama club.

At school we had classes in Russian, literature, mathematics, biology, geography, physics, chemistry, English, history, computer programming. We also rmd music, physical education, arts and crafts.

My favourite subject was English. I liked to learn new words, to dramatize texts and dialogues. I liked it when we discussed something interesting to us, when we were taught to debate, when we had small-group discussions or set up a role play.

But I wasn't very good at chemistry. I always failed to learn formulas and terms properly. Maybe our chemistry teacher was too serious, too academic. She was not imaginative enough and her lessons were a little bit dull, there was not enough excitement for us to get interested in the subject.

I liked my class. I always felt at home there. Everybody was so friendly and easy to get along with. I was on good terms with my classmates and we often spent our free time together.

MY FRIEND'S HOBBY

My friend Nick is very busy and he doesn't have much time to spare. He is free only at the weekends. A few years ago Nick was fond of collecting stamps. I know that his mother had started collecting stamps long before he was born. When he was five years old his mother had six albums of stamps. She didn't let him touch the stamps until he was twelve. She gave him the albums as a birthday present and he continued collecting stamps himself. He learned a lot about other countries and other peoples' traditions, the world's flora and fauna. Maybe that's why he was good at geography and biology at school. He used to bring the albums to school and we examined his stamps with great interest and envy. Sometimes he exchanged stamps with his schoolmates.

But three months ago Nick's parents bought him a compact disc player and Nick decided to collect compact discs. He is fond of listening to music (as you remember, Nick has a good ear for music and likes jazz very much). Besides jazz. Nick also likes rock music, pop music, classical music. He doesn't like techno, metal and rap. He himself says that he likes any good music. Now Nick collects compact discs of his favourite groups and singers, he carefully studies the information printed on disc booklets. He also tries to find out everything about the singers he likes. That's why he reads a lot of specialised magazines and never misses MTV shows (he thinks he must keep up with the news in the world of music). He even writes letters to some fan-clubs in other countries, so he has to brush up his English. He never misses a concert of his favourite group (if they come to our city). He brings his compact discs to the concert and asks the singers for their autographs.

But in spite of his new hobby, Nick sometimes sits in his room and looks through his albums of stamps (with his earphones on, of course).