Задания по английскому языку 9-11 класс

Reading Comprehension

Part 1

You are going to read an extract from a magazine article. Six paragraphs have been removed from the extract. Choose from the paragraphs A-G the one which fits each gap (1-6). There is one extra paragraph which you do not need to use.

For the past 28 years Don Merton has battled to save the kakapo, New Zealand’s extraordinary green parrot. In 1995, when numbers fell to 50, it looked like the end for this bird. But this year they staged a comeback. The last survivors of this unique species have produced 26 chicks — more than in the whole of the past two decades. Instead of having no future at all, the kakapo suddenly has prospects.

1

Males gather at an arena to compete for females. After mating, the females raise their young alone. The kakapo is important because it has combinations of features found in no other bird,’ says Merton, the longest serving member of the National Kakapo team. Unfortunately, its peculiarities have also made it vulnerable. Before man arrived, their only enemies were predatory birds and the kakapo’s green plumage provided perfect camouflage against the vegetation.

2

Then after years of searching, Merton and a team from the New Zealand Wildlife Service discovered a single bird in a valley in Fjordland in the far south. It was an old male. Search parties found 17 more — all old males. Three years later, Merton’s team finally uncovered signs of kakapo in the south of New Zealand’s Stewart Island. It turned out to be a colony of 200 birds and some were breeding. ‘We thought the kakapo was safe then,’ says Merton. They were wrong. Cats were killing them at an alarming rate.

3

Merton knew what he had to do. The birds had to breed before it was too late and nothing could jeopardize this. From now on, the team would manage almost every aspect of kakapo life. They laid traps for rats and watched nests 24 hours aday. If anything other than a kakapo entered the nest, a watcher set off a tiny explosive charge that made a small bang, enough to startle intruders. By 1999, all the kakapo had been successfully moved to two islands — Maud Island, and Codfish Island, both free of rats.

4

‘The challenge was to work out a diet and persuade them to eat it,’ says Merton. The team eventually found that kakapo were especially partial to nuts. The birds thrived on the extra food, but still wouldn’t breed. They seemed to be waiting for some special cue. On Maud Island it wasn’t clear what that cue was, but on Codfish island there was no doubt that the birds bred in response to some signal from the rimu tree that alerts them to a coming mast.

5

Armed with this new knowledge, the team was ready to swing into action as soon as they spotted signs of masting on Codfish Island. Last year, it became obvious that the rimu were going to produce a large crop of seeds the next autumn. Merton moved all the adult females to Codfish Island. As the breeding season drew nearer, the kakapo rescue team arrived with electronic monitoring equipment, and spent the next months watching nests throughout the long nights.

6

The result was a large batch of chicks, a remarkable breakthrough, but there are still only 86 kakapo in the world. Do they really have good prospects? Merton is confident they do. ‘As long as we keep using the same techniques, the population will steadily rise,’ he says. ‘The kakapo won’t be extinct in our lifetime.’
A What followed was an intensive rescue operation. During the following 15 years all the kakapo were moved to islands free from cats, stoats or possums. ‘We thought we’d put them out of reach of predators,’ says Merton. Again they were mistaken. They hadn’t realized how dangerous the rats were. Not only did they compete with kakapo for food, they also ate eggs and chicks. It finally came to the point where only 50 kakapo remained.

B In September the team began to put out extra food. ‘We provided enough so the birds could breed but not so much that they’d get fat,’ says Merton. ‘We wanted to keep their weight down to encourage them to produce female chicks.’ In December the males began their booming noises, and the females trekked to the courtship areas to choose a mate, unaware that electronic eyes were watching them.

C The kakapo is nocturnal, looks like an owl, smells sweet and makes some very odd noises — from growls to deep resonant booms. Kakapo can’t fly, but they are excellent climbers. They live a very long time and are the world’s biggest parrots. The kakapo also has a unique breeding system.

D Persuading the birds to breed was the next harder step as this only occurs when certain plants produce large crops of fruit and seeds, an event known as masting. At other times, the birds manage on very little. It’s enough to support their metabolism, but not enough to raise a family. In the past, the kakapo from Fjord land and Stewart Island bred in response to masting by a range of plants including rimu trees. The team hoped with extra food the birds might breed.

E Merton estimates this could take at least 15 years, less if they can trick the birds into breeding more often. ‘We’re looking for whatever it is in rimu that triggers breeding. It’s probably chemical,’ says Merton. ‘Or it might be nutritional.’ The team is currently testing an improved food pellet to see if that works.

F There was nothing the team could do but patiently wait for nature to take its course. They continued with the food programme to ensure the females were in top condition and monitored the males to keep an eye on their numbers. The population remained stable but the team recognized the fact that it was only the rimu tree that would turn things around.

G Once man arrived, bringing with him not only his dogs but rats that could sniff out nests, it was a different story. The rats went for eggs, chicks and even adults. The decline in numbers accelerated once European settlers arrived. They cleared large areas of kakapo habitat and brought more predators — cats, rats, stoats, and possums. By the late 1960s the kakapo was feared extinct.

Ответы:  1C, 2G, 3A, 4D, 5F, 6B

Part 2

You are going to read a set of science book reviews. For questions 7-21, choose from the reviews (A-D). The reviews may be chosen more than once.

In which review are the following mentioned?

7

the warning that the author does not always simplify the subject matter for the reader

8

an admission of past ignorance on the reviewer’s part
9

the subject matter being dealt with in an impressive amount of detail
10

the book having both a narrative and simple academic approach
11

the depressing revelations the book makes about certain areas of its subject matter

12

the book’s combination of established fact and doubt about

13

the subject the reviewer’s sense of satisfaction concerning a personal achievement

14

a comparison between two very different causes of anxiety
15

praise for the author’s clarity of thinking and enthusiasm for the subject
16

a mild criticism about some mistakes which occur in the book

17

the reviewer’s implication that the subject matter deserves more consideration

18

the book’s neutral approach to its subject matter
19

a warning that the conclusions the author draws may be frustrating

20

the fact that opinions on the subject were once based on guesswork

21

the suggestion that this book would be a good starting point for readers
This month’s new science books

A Maggie McDonald: Small Wonder by Barbara Kingsolver

White letters chalked on a blackboard in Sri Lanka are the first things I remember reading. The pleasure of deciphering that first word (C-A-T, of course) remains with me to this day. By age 11, I read a book a day, and at 14 I was being tested by an irritated teacher and school librarian who demanded proof that I was actually reading my library books. But there are only so many authors even the most avid of readers can digest, and some evaded me. Barbara Kingsolver was one. I had her filed in a ‘sentimental nature-lover: must avoid’ category. Friends kept recommending her and a few years ago, I read my first Kingsolver and ditched my ill-founded prejudice. She’s a biologist by training and a wonderful writer. Possessed of an analytical mind, she’s capable of putting it all down with real passion: a rare find. If you haven’t tried her yet, do! Small Wonder is Kingsolver the essayist, elegant and insightful, and a great place to set out from before you tackle her backlist. Here you’ll find the San Pedro river on the edge of survival, the energy bill behind the production of a five-calorie strawberry, and scientist Charles Darwin in all his complexity summed up in a mere four clear paragraphs.

B Sue Bowler: Earthshaking Science by Susan Elizabeth Hough

Anyone who has ever driven an elderly, ailing car knows the feeling: it’s going to break down, but who knows when, where and what part of the system will fail? Predicting earthquakes is much the same. Tidy forecasts of what, when, where and how much it will cost are as rare for quakes as for car repairs, and about as reliable. Have earthquake seismologists failed, then? Susan Elizabeth Hough says not, and Earthshaking Science sets out her case. This book gives us an excellent outline of how, why and where earthquakes happen together with a clear-eyed look at the subject’s inherent uncertainties. This is not a book that proposes simplistic answers. It presents a real picture of a lively research field in all its gritty glory, written with a sharp eye for the absurdities of scientific life.
The focus on uncertainty has the paradoxical effect of highlighting the areas in which seismologists are confident, which makes it easier to deal with the ambiguities. Hough includes a careful and informative discussion of the earthquake risk across the US. Although her findings do not make easy reading, given the unexpected changes of intraplate quakes, it is an excellent analysis of what to worry about and where. Overall, this is an intelligent look at a broad field of science that affects many lives. Anyone heading for an earthquake area should buy a copy.

C Adrian Barnett: Zoo by Eric Baratay

What’s the attraction of gazing at captive animals? It’s a good question and others have often sketched out an answer. But in Zoo, Eric Baratay gives us an unprecedented, in-depth answer. He explains why zoos lodge in the human psyche, their place in society, and how they developed over time. Placing them in their social and cultural context, Zoo traces the development of animal collections from medieval bear fights through the menagerie of the French king Louis XIV to modern captive breeding centres. Combining architectural analysis and political history, the author shows that the desire to display our domination over nature has long been a hidden feature of zoos.
The text has been translated from the French and in places, not very successfully. A trained biologist on the translation team might have weeded out appalling zoological errors such as describing the gannet as a ‘rare and much sought after’ bird, which it is definitely not. But these are forgivable oversights in a wonderful book that is acute at tracing themes of modern animal husbandry. While the book neither apologizes for nor criticizes the modern zoo, the extensive appendices tell a grim story. They contain a wealth of statistics on the death rate in collections, and the success rate of captive breeding. An absolute must for those interested in zoo history — or anyone fascinated by homosapiens’ changing relationship with our fellow creatures.

D Ben Longstaff: Journey from the Center of the Sun by Jack B. Zirker

Up, down, in or out. If that’s about as much attention as you pay the Sun, you’re ignoring something incredible. Did you know that it loses a million tonnes every second in the form of light alone? That’s just for starters. In journey from the Center of the Sun, Jack Zirker goes on a breakneck trip from its hellish core out into the realm of the planets, explaining as much as possible about our star on the way. His story-meets-textbook approach mainly avoids confusing scientific equations, but enables him to delve into lots of physics from massive sound waves to exploding pieces of sun the size of Asia.
Zirker’s explanations are clear and sharp, although don’t expect him to lead you by the hand. You do need to find the patience for a few serious pages of physics and daunting diagrams, but that’s just great news if you want plenty of fascinating details as well as the grand overview. His informal style keeps things moving along swiftly, while balancing the latest findings with background on the pioneers of the field. He shows how solar research has progressed from inspired speculation into a flourishing science.

Ответы: 7D, 8A, 9C, 10D, 11C, 12B, 13A, 14B, 15A, 16C, 17D, 18C, 19B, 20D, 21A

Use of English

Part 1

For questions 1-12, read the text below and decide which answer (А, В, С or D) best fits each gap. There is an example at the beginning (0).

Example:
0    A measure В consider С regard D notice

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

People have been debating the principles of beauty for thousands of years, but it still seems impossible to (0)…………….. it objectively. German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1)……………. whether something can possess an objective property that makes it beautiful. He concluded that although everyone accepts that beauty exists, no one has ever (2)…………… on the precise criteria by which beauty may be (3)…………. .
The ancient Greek philosopher Plato wrote of a scale called the ‘golden proportion’,
(4) ……………… to which the width of the face should be two-thirds of its length, preferably (5)…………….by a nose no longer than the distance between the eyes.
Symmetry has been proved to be attractive to the human (6) ……………, so a face may seem beautiful because of the (7)…………..between its two sides. Babies spend more time looking at symmetrical faces than asymmetrical ones and symmetry is also (8)…………… as more attractive by adults looking at photos. So although there seems to be no (9)……………agreement or even national consensus on what (10)…………..beauty, there is at least some agreement that facial symmetry is an important (11)…………… .
In the meantime, if you look at your partner and (12)…………… them as beautiful, you can congratulate yourself with the thought that people generally end up with a partner of a comparable level of attractiveness as themselves.

Ответы: 1D, 2B, 3A, 4B, 5A, 6C, 7D, 8B, 9D, 10A, 11D, 12C

Part 2

For questions 13-22, read the text below. Use the word given in capitals at the end of some of the lines to form a word that fits in the gap in the same line. There is an example at the beginning (0).

Example: 0 EXHIBITION

Community Centre Summer Events

June 3rd sees the opening of an incredible (0)……………………….of photographs by professional photographer and local (13)………………………., John Taylor. In the 50 years that John has been taking photographs, he has amassed a (14)……………………….fascinating record of village life. The show is (15)……………………….History Through The Lens and includes nostalgic portraits of local people and hypnotic images of the landscape. There is also a section on (16)………………………. important events which is equally fascinating. Another upcoming event is a book reading by author Maria Treadway. You may know Maria as a children’s writer, but over the last three years she has
(17)……………………….into adult fiction. Her novels, all set in the 17th century, are both entertaining and highly (18)………………………..Maria has often admitted in the past to being a (19)……………………….and she carries out extensive research before she writes. On June 9th, she will be reading from her latest novel The Last Key, which is (20)……………………….her best work to date. This is a really (21)……………………….evening so be sure to book well in advance. (22)……………………….to both events is $10 for adults and free for pensioners.

0 EXHIBIT
13 RESIDE
14 VISION
15 TITLE
16 HISTORY
17 DIVERSE
18 INFORM
19 PERFECT
20 ARGUE
21 MISS
22 ADMIT

Ответы: 13 RESIDENT, 14 VISUALLY, 15 ENTITLED, 16 HISTORICALLY, 17 DIVERSIFIED, 18 INFORMATIVE, 19 PERFECTIONIST, 20 ARGUABLY, 21 UNMISSABLE, 22 ADMISSION

Part 3

For questions 23-27, think of one word only which can be used appropriately in all three sentences. Here is an example (0).

Example:
0 Please explain to me the…………………………….of having another meeting.
It was at that…………………………….that most of the audience got up and left.
We lost a…………………………….because one person in our team started the race too early.

Example: POINT
_______________________________________________________________

23 The bad weather is expected to…………………………….by the afternoon.
It’s time to…………………………….out these cupboards and make some space.
The lawyer announced that he had new evidence that would………………..the young man of murder.

24 If we…………………………….prices any more we’ll be making hardly any profit.
The censors insisted that some violent scenes were…………………………from the movie.
We were so poor that my mother was forced to…………………..up her old dresses to make new ones for us.

25 The company needs to…………………………….this problem before it gets worse.
This glue will…………………………….any material to any another surface.
Before we all leave, we should…………………………….a date for the next meeting.

26 All the castle towers…………………………….north across the entrance to the harbour.
It doesn’t…………………………….as if we’ll have the chance to see the museum.
It’ll take some time to…………………………….through the report and make a decision.

27 The…………………….in the newspaper said the roadworks would begin on July 2nd.
It has come to my…………………………….that staff are dissatisfied with the company cafeteria.
Both witnesses failed to…………………………….the clothes the thief was wearing.

Ответы: 23 CLEAR, 24 CUT, 25 FIX. 26 LOOK 27 NOTICE

Writing

Write your competition entry.

Your class has recently been doing a project on people’s attitudes to marriage in the twenty-first century. Your teacher has asked you to write an essay, giving your opinion on the following statement.

Marriage is a tradition that is unnecessary in modern society.

Write your essay. You should write 250 words

Speaking

Student 1

Part 1

For both candidates: Look at the three pictures. They show holiday destinations in different countries.
Candidate 1: Compare two of these pictures and say what kind of people would choose a holiday destination like this, and what the reasons for their choice might be.

Part 2

For both candidates: Look at the pictures. They show examples of different texts that people read.
Talk to each other about what each of these texts might tell us about life today. Then decide which three texts you would choose to put in a museum for future generations to see.

Student 2

Part 1

For both candidates: Look at the three pictures. They show holiday destinations in different countries.

Candidate 2: Which of these destinations do you think would have the least relaxing effect on people?

Part 2 

For both candidates: Look at the pictures. They show examples of different texts that people read.
Talk to each other about what each of these texts might tell us about life today. Then decide which three texts you would choose to put in a museum for future generations to see.

Listening

Part 1

You will hear three different extracts. For questions 1-6, choose the answer (А, В or C) which fits best according to what you hear. There are two questions for each extract.
_____________________________________________________________
Extract One
You hear part of an interview with an environmental campaigner called Richard Frost.

1 Why did businessman Kwabena Osei Bonsu set up Trashy Bags?

A He wanted to solve a problem.
В He had seen similar projects overseas.
С He was given government funding.

2 What does Richard Frost recommend about plastic bags in Britain?

A Customers should be made to pay for them.
В They should be disallowed by the government.
С Supermarkets should offer other kinds of bag instead.

Extract Two
You hear two people on a radio programme talking about the subject of hypnotherapy.

3 What did the woman think about hypnotism before she visited a hypnotherapist?

A She doubted that it was effective.
В She believed it could treat psychological problems.
С She thought it worked for people who believed in it.

4 The two speakers agree that many people

A have a negative image of hypnotists.
В are not in control of themselves during hypnosis.
С are disappointed with the results of hypnotherapy.

Extract Three
You hear part of an interview with a woman called Fiona who works as a zoo tour guide.

5 What does Fiona say about visitors who go on zoo tours?

A They encounter some animals for the first time.
В They have strong preferences about which animals to see.
С They are unaware of the potential danger.

6 How did Fiona feel after the incident with the chimpanzee?

A She was reluctant to work with chimpanzees again.
В She realized that she needed to be more careful at work.
С She was uncertain why the incident had occurred.

Ответы: 1A, 2C, 3B, 4A, 5C, 6B

Part 2

You will hear a museum curator called Frank Turner talking about a dinosaur exhibition. For questions 7-14, complete the sentences.

DINOSAUR EXHIBITION

Frank believes people want to be (7) …………….. which is why they visit the dinosaur exhibition.
According to Frank, children first look for the (8) …………….. in the exhibition.
Frank thinks the exhibition helps develop children’s (9) …………….. .
Scientists rely on two (10) …………….. fossilized skeletons of Tyrannosaurus Rex to help them with research.
Dinosaurs are mainly found preserved in (11) …………….. environments.
Frank refers to a huge (12) …………….. in China which killed many dinosaurs.
The Chinese dinosaurs had feathers which were probably used for (13) …………….. purposes.
Frank says that the museum appreciates (14) …………….. from visitors.

Ответы: 7 SCARED, 8 INTERACTIVE DISPLAYS, 9 IMAGINATION, 10 COMPLETE, 11 MARINE, 12 (VOLCANIC) ERUPTION, 13 INSULATION, 14 DONATIONS

Помощь учителю: 
TEST ONE Part 1
Extract One
Interviewer: Richard, can you give us an example of what people in other countries are doing in terms of recycling?
Richard: Absolutely. Erm, well, 60 tonnes of plastic packaging are dumped on the streets of Accra, the capital city of Ghana, every day. But recently a businessman called Kwabena Osei Bonsu set up a company called Trashy Bags to do something about it. He pays people to collect plastic bags and these are stitched together to make new ones. This kind of venture should be sponsored by governments, and there are plenty of similar projects occurring in other countries if they need ideas. But Kwabena had decided he wasn’t going to wait around. He says he wanted to come up with an idea that would sort out this awful situation in his lifetime.
Interviewer: I believe that in Britain, though, you’d like to stop the use of plastic bags completely?
Richard: Well, yes — they are an absolute environmental disaster but I can’t see our government going as far as banning them. I know that some supermarkets are charging customers 5 or 10 pence per bag, but such a small charge doesn’t put most people off. Actually, you can get bags made of bamboo or other fabrics but only a minority of people are using them, so I’d say it’s up to the supermarkets to start promoting them a bit more actively — so that customers know they’re available to buy instead.
Extract Two
Man: You’ve just had a few sessions of hypnotherapy, haven’t you? I have to say, I didn’t think you were into that kind of thing.
Woman: You thought I was the skeptical type? Well I’ve never been a believer in most alternative therapies but I’ve always been fairly open-minded when it comes to hypnotherapy.. .at least when it came to dealing with psychological problems. I mean, before I experienced hypnotism for myself, I didn’t think it would work for actual physical symptoms. I went along because I wanted to quit smoking, but Dr Grey helped me overcome my back pain, too.
Man: I guess a lot of people see celebrity hypnotists on TV embarrassing people they’ve hypnotized — making them do ridiculous things. And I think the result of that is that people are put off going to see genuine hypnotherapists -because they think anyone who practises hypnotism is not trustworthy.
Woman: I think you’re right, but people should know that hypnotherapy is a serious profession. And if the idea of being under someone else’s control makes you nervous, I can tell you it’s not like that. You’re always aware of what’s going on.
Extract Three
Interviewer: Erm, Fiona, how is it working with visitors to the zoo?
Fiona: The public? Generally they’re fantastic. Maybe they’re a little bit quiet to start with because they’re not sure what they’re going to do but soon after we’ve met the rhinos or we’ve started doing the monkeys they normally open up and they’re all ‘Oh, this is fantastic’. They start asking questions and they know a lot about the animals anyway because they’ve been going to the zoo for years. But the hardest thing for me is being constantly alert to the risks because even though you do warn people about them, they just don’t realize what could happen. I mean even the cheetahs look so docile and so cuddly.
Interviewer: Have you ever had an incident yourself?
Fiona: No, not exactly, but I did get a bit too close to the bars of the chimpanzee enclosure once, and the chimps had branches with them to try and get food from beyond the bars, and one of the male chimps basically just reached through the bars with his branch and poked me in the ribs and it was basically a ‘Get back! That’s my food!’ and from that moment on I’ve always been doubly aware of how close I am to an animal and what tools it has to get to me as well. He could have been a lot nastier, though, than he was. It was just a warning.

TEST ONE Part 2
I’ve been working in the museum for, er, well it’s almost twenty years now, and I can tell you that people come along for many different reasons. For some, it’s the desire for knowledge, for others, they just want to be entertained on a rainy day. But with the dinosaurs, it’s plain old fear. They enjoy being scared, and there’s nothing like a 30-foot monster towering over your head to do that, regardless of your age. The first thing the kids do when they run into the exhibition is seek out the interactive displays. I suppose in this age of technology, young people have got used to information being presented on a screen -one brief, bright image after another. But here — nothing moves. You look, usually up — you read, and hopefully you feel something. And I think that the exhibition can help with certain aspects of a child’s development.
It’s my opinion that you require imagination to appreciate an exhibition like this — you have to be able to fill in the missing pieces for yourself. This is something that is often neglected in mainstream education. Often I have to tell people that we simply don’t have all the information yet… even about the more famous dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus Rex. Dinosaur research is incredibly challenging because so few fossilized skeletons have been found. Did you know that only two of the T-Rex skeletons that scientists base their work on are actually complete? That’s not much to go on. What you see in most museums are models based around a few recovered bones — just reconstructions.
You see, the fossilization process requires particular conditions — the creature needs to be buried quickly — then gradual sedimentation needs to occur — and the body has to lie undisturbed. That’s why the environments in which fossils are generally discovered tend to be marine ones, rather than geographical areas that have remained comparatively dry. One of the challenges of showing a dinosaur exhibition is that you need to keep up with new theories and decide which ones are credible. Some interesting findings have come out of China in the last decade — which I’ll explain in a moment. It’s still generally accepted in the scientific community that dinosaurs disappeared following the event of a giant meteor crashing into Earth — which led to significant climate change. But not all dinosaurs succumbed to the cold. It was an enormous volcanic eruption that wiped out many of these creatures in China. They were instantly buried alive — and thus preserved — because there was no oxygen to help in the process of decay. And what interests scientists the most about the Chinese dinosaurs is that they appear to have been covered in feathers. It’s possible that they were used for display or defence, but the general opinion is that they were used for insulation. Bird feathers have all these functions, too, of course, but whether birds have directly descended from dinosaurs is still a matter of great debate.
I have to admit that I am rather proud of the exhibition, and the feedback we receive is always positive. But — there’s «even more we could do to make it a better experience for visitors — and for this reason, their donations are always welcome. In fact, the recent discoveries in China mean that some of our displays will need adapting so that the appearance…

PAPER 5 SPEAKING about 15 minutes Part 1
Candidates may be asked:

•  Where are you from?
• What do you do?
• How long have you been studying English?
• What do you enjoy most about learning English?
• What do you enjoy doing in your free time?
• If you could take up a new sport or activity, what would it be?
• What kind of television programmes do you watch?
• How much time do you spend on leisure compared to work or study?