Топики по английскому языку для школьников

Билеты по английскому языку

Our Country

Britain, is .only a small country, but every part is different. Scotland is a land of mountains, lakes and romantic castles. The

winters are cold, with plenty of snow, but the summers are often warm and sunny. Deer live in the hills, and the rivers are full of salmon. Edinburgh, Scotland"s capital, is very beautiful. The heart

of the city is the castle, where the kings of Scotland lived for centuries. Edinburgh has a busy cultural life. Every year, in August,

the International Festival takes place. Musicians, actors and singers come from all over the world and thousands of visitors fill the city. In the evening, the opera house, the theatres and concert halls are

full. In cafes and pubs, small groups sing, act and read poetry. The castle is at its best in Festival tune.Every night there is a magnificent military «Tattoo». Highland soldiers wearing «kilts» play the bagpipes and march to the music. Tartans, the patterns of the kilts, have an interesting history. Since the fifteenth century, each Scottish family (or ‘clan") has worn its own tartan as a kindof badge. It was a useful way of recognising people, especially in times of war.

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Many tartans date only from the nineteenth century, but some of the old patterns still exist. «Dress» tartans, worn on special occasions, have light, bright colours. Hunting tartans are usually green, blue, or brown. Wales is a country of high mountains and pretty valleys. But Wales has plenty of industry, too. There are.many factories and coal mines there. The people of Wales are very musical. Every year they have a festival of Welsh music and poetry called an «Eisteddfod».

A hundred years ago the north of England was the industrial heart of the country. The old factories have gone now and the workers have to look for Jobs in the new«high-tech» industries. The centre of England (the «Midlands») is also an important industrial area, especially near the huge cities of Coventry and Birmingham, the centre of

car industry. The west of England is a rich farming country. It produces milk, cream, butter, cheese and apples. Northern Island is beautiful too. In the warm, wet climate n of the land is farming.

Britain is an island and there is no place to be too far fronr sea. Some of the coast, especially in the west, is wild and ro with small, sandy beaches, and romantic harbours.

Vocabulary

Castle – замок Deer - олень

Edinburgh – Эдинбург Bagpipe - волынка

Tattoo – барабанная дробь Tartan – шотландский плед

Salmon – лосось cathedral- собор

coal mines – угольные шахты Beache – берег

Harbour – гавань

“high- tech” industries – отрасли высоких технологий

Eisteddfod – айстедвод, состязаниек бардов

Problems of city and coutry life

The saga of discovery and settlement of the New Worid, begun by European"s in the late 15th century, lasted more than 200 years. Snccessive transatlantic crossings, first into the Caribbean and then to the coast of Canada and along the coast of South America, describe the general pattern of exploration by the Spanish, Portuguese, falians, French, and English. Several factors made the Age of Exploration possible. Medieval cartographers placed Jerusalem at the center of the earth. But in the 15th century. Western scholars rediscovered Ptolemy"s «Geography», with its maps of a semispheric earth that accurately located all distant places. Improvements in

equipment enabled the construction of larger, more manoeuvrable ships.In-the East Europeans were cut off from land routes to India and China. The need for new avenues of trade with the Far East led to theseafaring explorations of the Age of Discovery.

In 1492 the Italian Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic in a Spanish-backed attempt to find a new trading route to the Far East. While that objective went unfulfilled, subsequent voyages by explorers did much to reveal both the complexities of transatlantic navigation and the nature of the New World. Simultaneously, Portuguese seafarers led by Bartolomeu Dias had pushed southward to the Cape of Good Hope, mapping the entire western coast of Africa in the process and proving the existence of a sea route between Europe and India. In 1497 John Cabot, a Venetian sea captain, completed the first recorded transatlantic voyage by an English vessel, while attempting to find a north-west passage to Asia. Cabot died during the second attempt to find a direct route to Cathay in 1498. Althoughl Sebastian Cabot continued his father"s explorations in the Hudson Bay region in 1508-1509, England"s interest in the New World waned. However, Cabot"s voyages established England"s belated claim to America, In 1520 Ferdinand Magellan discovered the strait, now bearing his name, that links the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The discovery of Cape Horn at the southernmost tip of South America was made in 1578 by the English navigator Francis Drake; this provided a more suitable route for trading ships.

Colonisation followed exploration, and, as isolated outposts gave way to larger protected settlements and military garrisons in the 17th and l8th centuries, the tide of colonists to the New World and the exploitation of natural resources from both land and sea increased. The explorers were inspired by curiosity and the desire tc become wealthy. The Age of Exploration enriched Europe.

Vocabulary

saga - увлекательная история New World -Новый Свет

successive – последующий exploration -исследование

Ptolemy - Птолемей accurately - точно

Columbus - Колумб" trading route - торговый путь

subsequent – последующий voyage - морское путешествие

explorer - исследователь reveal — показать

simultaneously - одновременно vessel - судно

wane - уменьшиться belated -запоздалый

claim - притязание Ferdinand Magellan - Фернандо Магелан

arrison - гарнизон

Caribbean - карибскии, относящийся к Карибскому морю

Age of Discovery = Age of Exploration - эпоха Великих ографических открытий

Barrtolomeu Dias - Бартоломеу Диаш

Education and future profession

The seventeenth century was the time of the development of various branches of science. The new mood had been established by Francis Bacon. Bacon was a lawyer who entered Parliament early and became James I"s Lord Chancellor. Bacon bad a wide range of scholarly interests. He had the reputation of being the most learned man of his time. Francis Bacon"s goal was synthesis. He wanted to organize "all knowledge" in a united whole. He defined the scientific method in a form that is still relevant and stimulates the growth of science. Every scientific idea, he argued, must be tested by experiment. With idea and experiment following one the other, the whole natural world would be understood. In the rest of the century British scientists put these ideas into practice.

Bacon made a great contribution to historical writing. He was a master stylist - his scientific works can be read with pleasure, as literature. He saw himself as an intellectual Columbus, revealing new world of science to his contemporaries, and bringing back hips freighted with useful knowledge. In his «New Atlantis» Bacon described an island governed by an Academy of Sciences, founded "for the knowledge of causes, and secret motion of things; and the enlarging the bounds of human empire, to the effecting of all things possible". This is the most accessible and exciting of his writings on science.

In his essay «Of Study» Francis Bacon regards studies as they should be: for pleasure, for self-improvement, for business. He considers the evils of excess study: laziness, affectation, and preciosity. Bacon divides books into three categories; those to be read in part, those to be read casually, and those to be read with care. Studies should include reading, which gives depth: speaking, which adds readiness of thought; and writing, which trains in preciseness. The author ascribes certain virtues to individual fields of study: wisdom to history, wit to poetry, subtlety to mathematics, and depth to natural philosophy. This essay has intellectual appeal indeed.

Meanwhile, scientists, were demystifying the universe. Nobody knows for sure who invented the telescope, but Galileo Galilei had built one of his own. With it he was able to confirm the heretical speculations of Copernicus, Kepler and Tyeho Brahe that the sun, not the earth, was the center of our universe. The specific origins of the microscope are equally obscure. In the 17th century. Robe Hooke used it to describe accurately the anatomy of a flea and the design of a feather; Antonie de Leeuwenhoek discovered a world of wriggling organisms in a drop of water. The invention of logarithms and calculus led to more accurate clocks and optical instruments.

By 1700 Galileo, Rene Descartes, Sir Isaac Newton and other scientists had clarified the principles by which machines work. Henceforth Western civilization"s technological supremacy was beyond challenge. Mechanical invention led inevitably to another step in the West"s commercial and political hegemony over the world: the Industrial Revolution.

Vocabulary

science - наука branches of science - области науки

establish – создать define - давать (точное) определение

make a contribution to - внести вклад в contemporary - современник

freight - грузить, фрахтовать Academy of Sciences - Академия Наук

«New Atlantis» - Новая Атлантида accessible - доступная

exciting – увлекательный confirm - подтверждать

demystify – раскрывать heretical - еретический

speculation - размышление microscope - микроскоп

obscure – неясный henceforth - с этого времени, впредь

technological supremacy - техническое превосходство calculus - исчисление

Problems of the youth (friendship, love, conflicts)

In 1605 the first Europeans came to Manhattan island from Holland. In 1626, Peter Minuit, governor of the Dutch settlements in North America known as New Amsterdam bought the island from the Native Americans for a few glass necklaces, valued about twenty-four dollars today. In 1609 Henry Hudson entered the River of the Mountains. In 1613 the Dutch-built: only four small houses on Manhattan’s a fur trading station. It was not until 1623, ten years more, that they started a real settlement, town of New Amsterdam in honour of the capital of their country in Europe. In 1644 when the English acquired the island, the village New Amsterdam was renamed New York. Today Manhattan is the heart of America"s business and culture. It is the most important banking re in the world. Fewer than two million of the city"s eight million people live on the island.

In 1789 on the steps of Federal Hall George Washington took the oath of office when he became the first president of the United States of America. During the years 1785 to 1790 New York was the capital of the United States. Due to its natural advantages as a our, and the rising tide of immigration from all parts of the world the role of New York as the leading city accelerated. Villages grew throughout the entire area.

For the visitor New York means skyscrapers, tremendous traffic, dazzling neon advertisements. Manhattan is full of parallel rows of buildings, those running from north to south are called avenues while those running from east to west are called streets. avenues and streets have only numbers instead of names. Wall Street from its very beginning became the market place of money. It was here that a walled stockade was erected to repulse the Indians its name. As the city expanded the stockade was dismantled as of no further use, but the market place for the purchase of bonds and securities remained.

Like every big city, New York has its own traffic system. Traffic can be terrible, and it is usually quicker to go by subway. It goes to almost every comer of Manhattan. New York is an international city, the place to try something new. It may be an experience you will never forget.

Vocabulary

settlement – колония necklace - ожерелье value - стоимость governor -губернатор skyscrapers - небоскребы market place – рынок stockade - укрепление, форт dismantl - разобрать

purchase - покупка bonds - облигации

securities - ценные бумаги subway - метро

traffic jams - дорожные пробки

dazzling neon advertisements - сверкающие неоновые рекламы

Sport and healthy life style

Аs Revolutionary America had produced two commanding figures who became world-wide known, Washington and Franklin, so the youthful republic raised into fame two brilliantly able men whose reputations spread beyond the seas - Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. They represented two powerful though different tendencies in American life, Hamilton the tendency toward closer union and a stronger national government, Jefferson the tendency toward a broader, freer democracy.

Hamilton had been born in Nevis, a little island of the Lesser lies, to a Scottish father and a Huguenot mother. He grew up ambitious, generous, devoted, proud, quick to take offences and inexhaustible energy. His achievements all arose from his combination of brilliancy, self-confident ambition, and industry. His father had no money to scud him to college. But a terrible hurricane-swept the Antilles, and he wrote a description of it which attract; so roach attention that his aunts sent him to the American mail land. He entered King"s College in New York, and threw himself into contact with the radicals of the town who were leading the n volt against royal authority. When at twenty-two he became

captain of an artillery company, he took his books to camp and studied far into the night.

Besides brilliancy and ambition, Hamilton had other quality which served him well. He possessed great personal attractiveness With reddish-brown hair, bright brown eyes, fine forehead, and firm mouth and chin, he was very handsome, his face animated an pleasant when he talked, severe and thoughtful when he was , work. He liked a lively dinner party and shone in any circle which offered intellectual companions, and witty talk. As leader of New York patriots, he was brought to Washington"s notice an made him the general"s principal aide, it enabled him to lead dramatic assault at the siege of Yorktown, it rendered him the principal figure in Washington"s administration, and it gave him command of a great party. He had remarkable talents as an executive and organizer. He wrote and spoke much. Yet he also showed striking defects. He was quick-tempered. He Quarreled with Washington near the end of the war and rejected the advances the Washington made to heal the breach. His arrogance of spin brought him into unnecessarily conflicts - with Jefferson, with the Washington administration, and with Aaron Burr, ending in his own death in a duel.

Vocabulary

Antilles - Антильские острова possess - владеть

attractiveness - привлекательность animate - оживлять

sever - суровый thoughtful - задумчивый

executive - исполнительный arrogance - высокомерие

hot-tempered - вспыльчивый, горячий

attract the attention — привлечь внимание

Travaling

The uniqueness of the British as a people has long been taken granted by foreign observers and native commentators alike. Visitors from overseas,; fromVenetian ambassadors in the late fifteenth century, through intellectuals like Voltaire, to American journalists of the twentieth century, have all been convinced of the special quality of British society. This has been equally asumed by modern native chroniclers of the British scene. But the nature or essence of the Britishness of the British is far easier to proclaim than to explain. Some English characteristics upon which both natives and visitors have tended to agree have to do with national psychology: egoism, self-confidence, intolerance of outsiders, deep suspieiousness towards their compatriots, ostentatious wealth, independence, social mobility, love of comfort and a strong belief in private property. Moderation, the avoidance of extremes, the choice of a middle way, are among the essential qualities of Englishness. The two features of English life which from the 15th century onwards struck almost every observer were the country"s wealth and its strong sense of individualism.

The features that have shaped the British distinctiveness were determined by the country"s geographical isolation from the European continent, with the consistent centrality of sea power and a broad social fluidity in which the early collapse of feudalism helped generate a new industry and commercial enterprise. The long centuries during which the land was free from invaders meant that there could be a flowing culture continuity from the time of Chaucer onwards impossible on the war-torn Continent. A political and legal evolution is expressed in the English Parliament which has survived in recognisable form till today, without those interruptions and periods of absolute monarchy that have marked the history of its neighbours, and the rule of law. There have been other significant features in the development of England which mark it as a country to some degree separate from Europe. One of the most important is the language. English is a language of unparalleled richness, subtlety and variety, which unlocks" the treasures of a literature second to none in the werid. It is the easiest language to leam.

As for British history, it is not one of harmonious continuity, broadening from epoch to epoch. It is a dramatic, colourful, often violent story of an ancient, society and culture torn apart by the political, economic, and intellectual turmoil of human experience. Britain in many ways has been the cockpit of mankind.

Vocabulary

Ambassador – посол assume – допускать

Proclaim – провозглашать psychology – психология

Self – confidence – самоуверенность intolerance – нетерпимость

Ostentatious – показной Uniqueness – уникальность social fluidity – соц. Подвижность Avoidance – уклонение extreme – крайность Isolation – изоляция invader – захватчик Continuity – непрерывность proceed – продолжать Turmoil – беспорядок

private property – частная собственность

Environmental protection

The 20^th century began slowly, to the ticking of grandfather clocks and the stately rhythms of progress. Thanks to science, industry and moral philosophy, mankind"s steps had at last been guided up the right path. The century of steam was about to give way to the century of oil and electricity. Charles Darwin"s theory of evolution, only 41 years old in 1900, proposed a scientific basis for the notion that progress was gradual but inevitable, determined by natural law.

And everybody thought that the development would continue in the small steps that had marked the progress of the 19th century. Inventions like the railroad or the telegraph or the typewriter had enabled people to get on with their ordinary lives a little more conveniently. No one could have guessed then that, in the century just beginning, new ideas would burst upon the world with a force and frequency that would turn this stately march of progress into a long distance, free-for-all sprint. Thrust into this race, the children of the 20th century would witness more change in their daily existence and environment than anyone else who had ever walked the planet.

This high-velocity attack of new ideas and technologies seemed to ratify older dreams of a perfectible life on earth, of an existence in which the shocks of nature had been tamed. But the unleashing of unparalleled progress was also accompanied by something quite different: a massive regression toward savagery. If technology endowed humans with Promethean aspirations and powers, it also gave them the means to exterminate one another. Assassinations in Sarajevo in 1914 lit a spark that set off an unprecedented explosion of destruction and death. The Great War did more than devastate a generation of Europeans. It set the tone - the political, moral and intellectual temper - for much that followed.

Before long the Great War received a new name - World War I. The roaring 1920s and the Depression years of the 1930s proved to be merely a prelude to World War II. Largely hidden during that war was an awful truth that called into question progress and the notion of human nature itself.

But civilization was not crushed by the two great wars, and the ruins provided the stimulus to build a way of life again. To a degree previously unheard of and perhaps unimaginable, the citizens of the 20th century felt free to reinvent themselves. In that task They were assisted by two profound developments–psychoanalysis and the Bomb.

Vocabulary

stately - величественный, величавый

thrust - толчок

high-velocity - большая скорость

savagery - варварство

aspiration - стремление

exterminate - уничтожать

assassination - убийство политического или общественного деятеля spark - искра

explosion - взрыв

destruction - разрушение, уничтожение

devastate - опустошить

roaring - бурный

Depression - кризис 1929-32 гг.

Outstanding people

Edward VI took the English throne in 1461. When he unexpectedly died in 1483, his brother Richard was one of the most powerful men in the kingdom. Edward IV left two little sons, Edward, Prince of Wales, age twelve, and Richard, Duke of York, age nine. Their uncle Richard made a conspiracy to seize the Princes. He brought them to London and locked away in the Tower, and started to move toward usurpation. He alleged that the marriage of his dead brother, Edward IV, was invalid because Edward had previously promised to marry another woman. As a result, the little princes were declared bastards, and young Edward V had no right to the throne of England. To assure his own security, Richard is believed to have ordered to murder the little princes in the Tower. He became King Richard III.

Richard had the most obvious reasons for wanting the young princes dead. He lived through a civil war that taught him that powerful men were always ready to rally around a standard revolt. If such a flag could be raised for a prince of the royal blood to restore him to a rightful throne, noblemen with great lands, great debts, and empty wallets might readily take arms, looking for the main chance in the change of kings. Richard never felt secure on his throne; his swift, lawless, and lethal moves against those who threatened him showed that he was capable of murder if by murder he could rid himself of the mortal danger. And as long as the little princes remained alive the danger was always present. In the summer of 1483, the little princes disappeared forever; that much is certain.

Richard III was killed in the battle on 22 August 1485. Henry Tudor, earl of Richmond, now King Henry VII by right of conquest and some other hereditary claims, felt he needed to justify his own actions at the battle of Bosworth. He issued a royal proclamation, dated the day before the battle, declaring himself the rightful king of England and condemning Richard as the rebellious subject.

In 1674 two small skeletons were found in a wooden box buried ten feet under a small staircase that workmen were removing from the White Tower. They were thought to be the bones of the little princes. King Charles II had his own reasons for being offended at the murder of kings, so he placed these bones in the chapel of Henry VII in Westminster Abbey.

Vocabulary

usurpation - узурпация, незаконный захват

allege - утверждать, заявлять (голословно)

invalid - не имеющий законной силы

bastard - внебрачный ребенок

security - безопасность

rally – сплотиться

standard - знамя, флаг

murder - убийство

disappear - исчезнуть

it-rightful - законный

condemn - осуждать

Youth and unemployment

In the year 1000, Western Europe was just emerging from the long depression commonly known as the Dark Ages. Shortly before the beginning of the millennium, the Holy Roman Emperor Otto III moved his capital and court back to the Eternal City. But what little grandeur Rome still possessed paled by comparison with the splendors of "the new Rome, Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine empire. Byzantium was one of three centers of wealth and power in the known world of the 11th century, India and China were the others. There were sophisticated cultures elsewhere, notably the Mayans of Mexico, but they were virtually out of touch with other civilizations — thus lacking an essential condition for being considered part of world history.

Little of Europe"s coming dynamism was apparent in the year JOOO, although there were signs that the Continent was getting richer. Wider use of plows had made farming more efficient. The planting of new crops, notably beans and peas, added variety to Europe"s diet Windmills and watermills provided fresh sources of power. Villages that were to become towns and eventually cities grew up around trading markets. Yet the modern nation-state, with its centralized bureaucracies and armies under unified command came into being in the 15th century. For most of the Middle Ages, Roman Catholicism was Europe"s unifying force. Benedictine abbeys had preserved what fragments of ancient learning the Continent possessed. Cistercian monks had cleared the land and pioneered in agricultural experimentation. Ambitious popes competed with equally ambitious kings to determine whether the spiritual realm would hold power over the tea or vice versa. Symbolic of the church"s power were great Gothic cathedrals of Europe: construction of Reims began 13th century, and Charters—the most glorious of all such edifices—was consecrated in 1260.

By the 20th century the ingenuity, coupled with an aggressive wanderlust, brought Europeans and their culture to the ends earth. By the year 1914, eighty four per cent of the world" surface, apart from the polar regions, was under the influence European civilization. The hegemony of European civilization was based on the successful application of new knowledge to a problems and conquering nature, and much of that success based on circumstance and ingenuity.

Vocabulary

emerge - выходить millennium – тысячелетие

asceticism - аскетизм sophisticated - сложный

bureaucracies - чиновники apparent - явный

watermill - водяная мельница ambitious - честолюбивый

ingenuity - изобретательность wanderlust - страсть к путешествиям

surface - поверхность conquer - завоевать

assertion - утверждение accomplishment - достижение

grandeur - великолепие, пышность, грозность

Mass media

The problem between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland started a long time ago. It is more political than religious. For centuries the English had tried to gain control of Ireland. Until the 16-th century, England controlled only a small area of Ireland around Dublin. English rulers, including King Henry VIII (1491-1547), Queen Elizabeth I (153-1603) and Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) gradually conquered the whole of Ireland. The last area to resist the province in Ulster, in the north of Ireland, but in the Irish were defeated.

In 1910 the British Government offered Ireland a mild form of Home Rule – full self-government in regard to purely Irish affairs. Opposition was basked by the generals of the British Army’s troops in Ireland. The Irish patriots formed their own military organizations of the Irish Volunteers, drilling troops for the fight. The Labour Party in Ireland established the Irish Army. The Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army jointly started preparation for an insurrection. The set date was Monday of Easter Week, 1916. Although the uprising was a failure, it laid the foundation for another stage of the fight for freedom. In 1921, an independent Irish state was set up, that is the Republic of Ireland. In the north of Ireland six countries were dominated and controlled by Protestants, who refused to join the new Irish state. These six countries stayed part of the UK and are now called Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland is a very beautiful place. It is a land of mountains, rivers and lakes. It has a rugged coastline and one is never more than half an hour away from the coast by car. The people of Ireland have always been known for the stories and myths. They say that giants used to live on the Antrim coast, north of Belfast. One giant, Finn McCool, the commander of the king of Ireland’s army, fell in love with the woman giant in Scotland. He wanted her to come to Ulster so he started to build a bridge, the Giant’s Causeway, so that she could walk across the sea.

Vocabulary

Area-пространство

Defeat - наносить поражение

Home Rule – Гом Руль

Back - поддержать

Troops - войска

Volunteers - «Добровольцы»

Drill - строевая подготовка

Insurrection – восстание

Uprising – восстание

Failure – неудача, провал

Independent - независимый

County – округ, графство

Giant – великан

Leisure time

Until 1800 the United States of America had five «capitals» or meeting places of the Congress - Princeton, Annapolis, Trenton, New York and Philadelphia. For various reasons, none of these cities offered an ideal seat of government for the new nation. Southern states protested that they were all too far north. After the Constitution was adopted, the establishment of a new city was considered. President Washington pinpointed the exact location, and Congress passed a bill for a federal city and capital on July 17, 1790. The city of Washington was called just «The Federal City». It didn"t gain its name until after the first president"s death. When Congress and the rest of the small government"s agencies arrived from Philadelphia in, the new capital looked very unpromising indeed. Only a fragment of the Capitol was completed, and a part of the White House. Other government departments were scattered about, and a few houses had been built. Up until the time of the Civil War, Washington grew quite slowly. It really was just another sleepy southern town, enlivened only when the Congress was in session, and not much even then. After the Civil War it became the real capital of the United States.

The best known building in Washington is the White House, home of American Presidents since 1800. The site was selected by president Washington, the architect was James Hoban. The first residents of the White House were President and Mrs. John Adams. The cornerstone of the Executive Mansion, as it was originally known, dates from October 13, 1792, 300 years after the landing of Columbus. The president"s home is the earliest of all government buildings in the District of Columbia. The British troops which arrived in Washington in 1814 were indirectly responsible for the name «White House»: the building was fired by them. Later the fire marks on the walls were concealed by painting the whole building white. The term «White House» became official at the end of the 19th century. The President works here in the «Oval Office», but the White House is also a family home. President Truman had a piano next to his desk and President Kennedy"s children used to play under his office windows.

Washington is a cultural centre. It is proud of its art galleries, a zoo, natural history collections, and the Museum of History and Technology.

Vocabulary

Nation - государство

Pinpoint - указать

Exact location – точное расположение

Pass a bill – одобрить законопроект

Cornerstone – краеугольный камень

Government buildings – правительственные здания

To be indirectly responsible for – быть косвенно ответственным за

Civil War – гражданская война

Enliven – оживлять

Be in session - заседать

Delay - задержать

Completion - завершение

Accessible – доступный (открытый)

Magnificent view – великолепный взгляд

International organizations and international co-operation

Russian literature in the last half of the nineteenth century provided an artistic medium for the discussion of political and social issues that could not be addressed directly because of government restrictions. The writers of this period shared important qualities: great attention to realistic, detailed descriptions of everyday Russian life; the lifting of the taboo on describing the unattractive side of life; and a satirical attitude toward routines. Although varying widely in style, subject matter, and viewpoint, these writers stimulated government bureaucrats, nobles, and intellectuals to think about important social issues. This period of literature, which became known as the Age of Realism, lasted from about mid-century to 1905. The literature of the Age of Realism owed a great debt to three authors and to a literary critic of the preceding half-century Aleksandr Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov, Nikolai Gogol, and Vissarion Belinsky. These figures set a pattern for language, subject matter, and narrative techniques, which before 1830 had been very poorly developed. The critic Belinsky became the patron saint of the radical intelligentsia throughout the century.

Ivan Turgenev was successful at integrating social concerns with true literary art. His «Hunter"s Sketches» and «Fathers and Sons» portrayed Russia"s problems with great realism and with enough artistry that these works have survived as classics. Many writers of the period did not aim for social commentary, but the realism of their portrayals nevertheless drew comment from radical critics. Such writers included the novelist Ivan Goncharov, whose «Oblomov» is a very negative portrayal of the provincial gentry, and the dramatist Aleksandr Ostrovsky, whose plays uniformly condemned the bourgeoisie.

Above all the other writers stand two: Lev Tolstoy and Fedor Dostoevsky, the greatest talents of the age. Their realistic style transcended immediate social issues and explored universal issues such as morality and the nature of life itself. Although Dostoevsky was sometimes drawn into polemical satire, both writers kept the |main body of their work above the dominant social and political I preoccupations of the 1860s and 1870s. Tolstoy"s «War and Peace» and «Anna Karenina» and Dostoevsky"s «Crime and Punishment» and «The Brothers Karamazov» have endured as genuine classics because they drew the best from the Russian realistic heritage while focusing on broad human questions. Although Tolstoy continued to write into% the twentieth century, he rejected his earlier style and never again reached the level of his greatest works.

The literary careers of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Turgenev had all ended by 1881. Anton Chekhov, the major literary figure in the last decades of the nineteenth century, contributed in two genres: short stories and drama. Chekhov, a realist who examined not society as a whole but the defects of individuals, produced a large volume of sometimes tragic, sometimes comic, short stories and several outstanding plays, including «The Cherry Orchard», a dramatic chronicling of the decay of a Russian aristocratic family.

Vocabulary

Artistic medium – художественное средство

Government restrictions – правительственные ограничения

Subject matter - тема

Government bureaucrats – государственные чиновники

Owe – быть обязанным

Preceding – предшествующий

Patron saint – покровитель

Negative portrayal – отрицательное изображение

Provincial gentry – провинциальное дворянство

Human rights

In November 1960 the American people elected Senator John F. Kennedy to the Presidency. Kennedy defeated by a narrow margin his Republican opponent, Vice President Richard Nixon. The two youthful presidential candidates highlighted their campaigns by appearing on television in a serious of debates - Nixon emphasized the experience he had gained during his eight years in the administration and reminding voters of the «peace and prosperity» achieved under Republican leadership, and Kennedy calling for new, forward-looking leadership and more effective use of the country"s human and economic resources.

Almost everything about the new President caught the imagination of the people, and his Inauguration was no exception. In his. eloquent address the President set the tone of youthful energy and dedication that was the mark of his administration. Kennedy said: «Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined" by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed... Let every nation know that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty.» But the address was not merely a call to battle but an invitation to peace as well. «Let us never negotiate out of fear,» said the President, «but let us never fear to negotiate. Co-operation is better than conflict; let us then substitute co-operation for conflict. Let both sides explore what problems unite us... Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease.»

The first President to be born in the twentieth century, and the youngest ever to be elected to the presidency, Kennedy was not only spokesman for a new generation, but symbol as well. He brought to the presidency an alert intelligence, immense personal charm, a warm and generous humanitarianism, but also a lively awareness of the immense potentialities of presidential leadership. Indeed, his Cabinet and his White House advisers made up the youngest group of top-level officials in the country"s history -a group notable for its openness to new ideas and its readiness to take vigour actions.

Vocabulary

Narrow margin – небольшое преимущество

Highlight – освещать

Inauguration - инаугурация

Eloquent - красноречивый

Heritage - наследие

Burden - бремя

Hardship – неприятности

Substitute - заменить

Awareness – осведомленность, информированность

Immense – огромный

Vigour - решительные

Take actions – принимать действия

Culture of the youth

The foundation of the great schools which were named Universities was everywhere throughout Europe a special mark of the new impulse that Christendom had got from the Crusades. A new desire for study sprang up in the West from its contact with the more cultured East. Oxford and Cambridge are the oldest universities in England. Both of these universities are very beautiful. They have some of the finest architecture in Britain. Some of their colleges, chapels and libraries are three, four and even five hundred years old, and are full of valuable books and precious paintings. Of the early history of Cambridge little is known, but enough remains to enable us to trace the early steps by which Oxford gained its intellectual glory. The history of Cambridge is believed to begin in 1209 when several hundred students and scholars arrived at the little town of Cambridge after having walked 60 miles from Oxford According to the custom they joined themselves into “Universities” or a society of people with common employment. Only later they came to be associated with scholarship. "

Cambridge won independence from the Town rule in 1500. Students were of different ages and came from everywhere. Gradually the idea of the College developed and in 1284 Peter house, the oldest College was established. In 1440 King Henry VI founded King’s College, and other colleges followed. The first college of Oxford University was founded in 1249. At hat time with the revival of classic studies many teachers became enemies of parliament, and the Church. The lectures of Vicarious on the Civil Law at Oxford were prohibited by the English king. Now the university of Oxford has thirty-five colleges and about thirteen thousand students. There were no woman students at Oxford until 1878, when the first women’s college, Lady Margaret Hall, was up. Now, most colleges are open to man and women. Oxford is famous for its first-class education as well as its beautiful buildings. Many students want to study there. It is not so easy to get a place at Oxford University to study for a degree. But outside the university there are many smaller private colleges, which offer less difficult courses and where it is easy to enrol.

Vocabulary

Architecture - архитектура

Valuable - ценный

Precious - дорогой

Christendom – Христианский мир

Crusade – крестовый поход

Spring up - возникать

Revival of classic studies – возрождение классических наук

Prohibit - запрещать

Degree – ученая степень

Enrol – зачислять

Arts

American literature is dated from Mark Twain. Much of his writing was autobiographical. «Life on the Mississippi» was a story of his experiences as a pilot learning the great river and the country that it crossed, and the society that lived on its boats or along its banks. In 1884 came the greatest of his achievements«Huckleberry Finn». "All modern literature comes from «Huckleberry Finn»", said Ernest Hemingway, and the aphorism is really true. Mark Twain was considered by his contemporaries the Lincoln of American literature. The «valley of democracy» that created Mark Twain produced his friend W.D. Howells. In his writing Howells gave the most comprehensive picture of middle-class American society to be found in the whole of American literature. Probably no other novelist except Balzac ever made so elaborate a report on his society as did W.D. Howells. He drew genre pictures of the New England countryside, the best of all portraits of the «self-made» businessman, the extravagant life of the Ohio frontier, the rough life and work in New York City, and the clash of cultures in European resorts. Howells was not only one of the most representative American novelists; but he was, too, at the same time, the leading American Literature literary critic. He edited the great «Atlantic Monthly». He introduced Ibsen, Zola, and Turgenev to American audiences, discovered and sponsored younger writers like Stephen Crane and Frank Norris.

The third of the major novelists who emerged during the 1870s and reached maturity in the transition years was Henry James. Henry James took middle-class America for his theme. His best novels -«The Portrait of a Lady», «The American», «The Ambassadors», «The Wings of the Dove» - explore the themes of manners and morals. Very often they are cast into a pattern of New World innocence and Old World corruption. Of all American novelists between Hawthorne and Faulkner, James was most completely preoccupied with moral problems. Because James wrote of characters and subjects alien to the average American, and in a style intricate and sophisticated, he achieved little popularity in his own lifetime.

Vocabulary

Pilot - лоцман

Comprehensive – исчерпывающий, полный

Frontier - граница

Contemporary - современник

Genre pictures – жанровые сцены

Transition years – переходный период

Preoccupy – занимать, поглощать внимание

Character - персонаж

Subject - тема

Alien - чужой

Intricate - замысловатый

Average - средний

Maturity - зрелость

Defiant - вызывающий

Literary currents – литературные направления

Novel - роман

Топики по английскому языку для школьников

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