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Text 11. Sports in Great Britain.
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England is a sport-loving nation. Sports in England take many forms: organized competitive sports, which attract huge crowds to encourage their favourite team to victory, athletic games played for recreation, and others.
Some sports are called spectator sports, when the number of spectators is greater than the number of people playing in the game. Other sports are called participant, sports attracting crowds only on special occasions such as tournaments.
The game peculiarly associated with England is cricket. Many other games too are English in origin, but have been accepted with enthusiasm in other countries; cricket has been seriously and extensively accepted only in the Commonwealth particularly in Australia, India, Pakistan.
Cricket is slow, and a spectator, sitting in the afternoon sun after his lunch, may be excused for having a little sleep for half an hour. Cricket is making no progress in popularity. Association football of soccer is very popular. Nearly 40 million spe-ctators each year attend matches between the great professional teams organized by the Football League. The biggest event in England is the Cup Final played at the Empire Stadium, Wembley, in a London suburb.
Rugby football (or rugger) has existed in Britain since the beginning of the 19th century, when a teacher at Rugby school, while playing football, decided that it would be better to pick up the ball and run with it.
Rugby football is played with an egg-shaped ball which may be carried and thrown (but not forward).
The games of golf and tennis are played by great numbers of people. Golf is played in the countryside. It consists in driving a small ball towards and into holes separated by considerable distances, by means of special golf clubs. The aim is to “go round” using as few strokes as possible.
There are many tennis clubs, but every town provides tennis courts in public parks. The world championship tennis matches are held at Wimbledon in London, during June and July.
Text 12. My university.
Hello again! This is Katya and this time I’ll tell you about my University and my studies.
I am very happy that I study here. It is one of the finest country’s higher educa-tional institutions. Many famous people have graduated from my University, and not only economists or scientists, but many outstanding writers, actors, showmen and politicians. Studying at our University gives a solid background in all spheres of knowledge and prepares for practical work.
Our University is quite large but not very old, compare to other national institu-tions. It was founded in the beginning of the 20th century. In 1915, during the World War I the University of Warsaw was evacuated here. First it had only three faculties, but later it became the largest University in the region and it gave birth to other Institutions in the region. Nowadays it is a large school where more than 18 000 students are currently enrolled. The majority are full-time students, like me, and the rest are part time-students. There are also about 250 graduate students – as-pirants and doctorants. They conduct independent research work and have pedado-gical practice.
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The course of study at my University lasts five years. There are many faculties at my university. Here are some of them: the faculty of mechanics and Mathema-tics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Law, Economics, Philology and Journalism and, of course, the faculty of Psychology, where I currently study.
Our university is large and we have several buildings. One of the buildings is for lectures and seminars only. There are many large halls there so that students of 3 – 4 groups together can fit in there. And that is more than 100people. The acoustics in such large halls is very good but sometimes it is very noisy when students chat
during the lecture.
We have a building for the library, computer center, gym,and other facilities. Many students from my group want to do their own research work in the future and these facilities will certainly help them.
There are several cafes at the university. My favourite one is situated in our building. The food there is tasty and very affordable.
There are also several dormitories or hostel buildings where students from other cities or countries live. But you know already that I don’t live in a dormitory - I rent an apartment.
New words:
To be enrolled - числиться в студентах
Full-time students - студенты дневного отделения
Part-time students - студенты вечернего отделения
Facilities - службы, помещения
Affordable - доступное
Text 13. USA.
The United States of America is the fourth largest country in the world after Rus-sia, Canada and China. It occupies the central part of the North American conti-nent.
The USA is a federal republic, consisting of 50 states including the state of Alas-ka and Hawaii. Outlying areas include Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, and the US Virgin Islands.
The northern boundary is partly formed by the Great Lakes and the St Lawrence River; the southern boundary is partly formed by Rio Grande. United States also has a sea-border with Russia.
The total area of the USA is 9 809 155sq km, of which1 700 139 sq km are in Alaska and 28 313sq km are in Hawaii. Inland waters cover 507 788 sq km of the total area.
The country is washed by three oceans: the Artic, the Atlantic and the Pacific. The country has many lakes, with the Great Lake included. There are also many ri-vers on the US territory. The longest of them are the Missisippi, the Missouri, the Columbia, the Rio Grande and the others. On the US territory there are mountains and lowlands. The highest mountains are the Rocky Mountains, the Cordillera and the Sierra Nevada. The highest peak, Mount McKinley, is located in Alaska.
The climate conditions are rather different. The country is rich in natural and mi-neral resources: oil, gas, iron ore, coal and various metals.
The USA is a highly developed industrial and agricultural country. The main in-dustrial branches are aircraft, rocket, automobile, electronics, radio-engineering and others.
Americans are made up from nearly all races and nations. The country populati-on is over 250 mln. The national symbol of the USA is its national flag «Stars and Stripes», having 50 white stars and 13 white and red stripes on its field, symboli-sing the number of the original and present day states.
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Officially the country comprises 50 states and the one District of Columbia. The states differ in size, population and economic development. Each state has its own capital. The capital of the USA is Washington. In is situated in the District of Co-lumbia of the banks of the Potomac river and is named after the first american Pre-sident – George Washington. There are many large cities in the country: New York Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, San- Francisco, Cleveland and some others.
The United States of America is a federal state, headed by the President. Accor-ding to the US Constitution the powers of the Government are divided into three branches: legislative, executive and judicial.
The legislative power belongs to the Congress consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Senate represents the states while the House of Re-presentatives – the population. The executive power belongs to the President and his Administration (Vice-President and Cabinet of Ministers). The judicial power belongs to the Supreme Court and system of Federal, state and district courts.
There are several political parties in the USA, the largest of them are the Repu-blican (symbolised by donkey) and the Democratic (symbolized by an elephant).
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