PART II. READING FOR ANALYSIS
Text I
Pre-reading
Task 1. Translate the following words.
English Russian
custom …
… таможня
to date from …
… требование
… доход
auspices …
… правительство
Task 2. Look up the pronunciation of the following words in your dictionary: meticulously, experience, false, conquest, quay, auspices, tax.
Task 3. Match the words from the left to their corresponding definitions.
1. tradition a) something that you do regularly, often without thinking about it because you’ve done it so many times before
2. manner b) something that is done by you in a particular situation or by people in a particular society
3. habit c) the way in which something is done
4. way d) a way of doing something that has existed for a long time
5. custom e) the style in which someone does something
Task 4. Complete the table.
| Verb | Noun | Adjective |
| declare … … collect … … create … | … … grant … receipt … … conquest | declared suspicious … … … approved … … |
Reading for analysis
The custom of customs
Customs. Zoll. Donane. Dogana. Aduana.
You say, “Nothing to declare”, and the man who tosses your clothes around like a chef’s salad asks, “Do you really expect me to believe you have absolutely nothing to declare?”
Or you come clean with “Something to declare”, and the man who meticulously unroll your toothpaste tube demands, “What about something else to declare?”
Either way, panic sets in. “No. Nothing. Why? Do I look like I’ve got lots of stuff to declare?”
Years of experience have sharpened his jaundiced eye. Could there be a five-pound hunk of gorgonzola in a false – bottomed suitcase?
Could this be a hollowed out volume of Proust? Very suspicious, because nobody ever actually reads Proust.
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It doesn’t matter what you have, or what you don’t have, because the moment he gives you that look, you feel so guilty that he becomes convinced you’re hiding something. And you know that he knows. And he knows that you know that he knows. And if you’re not careful this could go on forever.
And as a matter of fact, this has been going on forever.
The custom of customs comes from England and appears to date from the year 742, when good King Etherbald granted the Abbey of Worcester the dues of two ships. Three years later he gave the Bishop of London the revenue from one ship. Later still, King Ethelred set up a collection post for ships sailing the Thames past King’s Wharf. Shortly after the Norman Conquest, when the French began filling England with their wine, the kings decided they were entitled to something for their own cellars and claimed five percent of whatever wine came in. And so import duties became a fact of life.
The New Custom Act of 1275 formally created “Customers”, now known as Customs Collectors, and Customs Controllers, just in case some of the Customers needed watching. And “Chercheurs”, whose job it was to keep an eye on the Controllers.
Collectors were appointed at each principal port to receive revenue. The system of special canals was introduced, requiring goods to be landed only at approved quays.
Since then, several well known people have served as Customers, Controllers, and Chercheurs on both sides of the Atlantic. Included are Geoffrey Chaucer, William Congreve, Robbie Burns, Adam Smith, Herman Melvill, Pat Garrett, Ulysses S.Grant, Chester A.Arthur, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Tom Paine.
Born in Thetford, Norfolk, in 1737, Paine lived in England for almost forty years before emigrating to the Colonies. Yet he is forever remembered in other circles as the only Customer, Controller, and Chercheur to have been fired from the Customs service – not once, but twice. He must also be one of the few people in history to have been sentenced to death not once, but twice – first in England, then in France – and in the end to have died of old age.
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The US Customs Service, based on the British model, was formed in 1789, put under the auspices of the newly created Treasury, and run by a thirty-four-year-old Alexander Hamilton. The first duty ever collected in the New World, $774.71, was paid on a cargo brought over from Italy in August of that first year.
In fact, from that day until the start of World War I, the US Customs Service was the government’s sole source of revenue. Their winning streak ended when Congress made a decision to introduce an income tax.
Notes: How to read figures
Whole numbers
We say three hundred, six thousand, eight million, etc. (There is no s at the end of the words.) But we add s for approximate numbers: hundreds of people, millions of dollars.
For figures over 100, British English, unlike American English, uses and between hundreds and tens:
327 – three hundred and twenty-seven (American English - three hundred twenty-seven)
653 – six hundred and fifty-three (American English – six hundred fifty-three)
We say one thousand rather than a thousand before a number of hundreds. The word thousand is not followed by and unless the figure is less than 1,100; 2,100, etc.
1,348 – one thousand three hundred and forty-eight
1,001 – one thousand and one
6,087 – six thousand and eighty-seven
Decimals
If we have to use a decimal we say point. Each figure is said separately:
0.35 – Br.E./Am.E. – zero point three five
Br.E. – nought point three five
6.75 – six point seven five
When speaking about money, we say the currency unit after if it is a whole number:
$75 – seventy-five dollars
$75.50 – seventy-five dollars fifty
Working on the text
Task 5. Say the given figures.
1. $774.71
2. 0.45
3. 1.85
4. $759
5. £16.50
6. 2001
Task 6. Say these sentences paying attention to the figures.
1. A Roman mile was about 0.92 of a modern mile.
2. A UK gallon is 4.55 litres and a US gallon is 3.78 litres.
3. Light travels at 186,000 miles per second.
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4. One square inch is 6.4516 square centimeters.
Task 7. Nouns used as numerical adjectives are singular. For example, a man who is 34 years old = a thirty-four-year-old man. Change the following phrases in the same way.
1. a hotel with five stars
2. a budget worth 3 million dollars
3. an industrial empire which is 150 years old
4. an office block that has three storeys
5. a seminar that lasts three days
6. a day that lasts eight hours
Task 8. Find the words in the text to match the following definitions.
1. very careful about small details;
2. thinking that people or things are bad, especially after having had bad experience in the past;
3. feeling very ashamed and sad because you know that you have done something wrong;
4. charges to be paid;
5. the money received from tax;
6. a place in a town where boats can load/unload;
7. with the help and support of a particular organisation;
8. a government department that controls the money that country collects and spends.
Task 9. Form the adverbs. Mind the exceptions of the grammar rule.
large significant suspicious good
easy natural careful late
busy absolute international hard
private meticulous mental fast
Task 10. Arrange the letters in brackets into terms to match the definitions.
1. to state officially and publicly (e e r a d l c)
2. feeling that you don’t trust someone or something (s s i i s p u u c o)
3. money received from tax (r u e e n e v)
4. to choose someone for a position or a job (p n t p i a o)
5. the act of obtaining money that is owed to you (o l l n i e c c t o)
6. an amount of money to be paid to the government (a x t)
Task 11. Fill in the blanks with a proper preposition and translate the sentences into Russian.
1. The custom … Customs comes … England and appears to date … the year 742.
2. Later still, King Ethelred set … a collection post … ships sailing the Thames … King’s Wharf.
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3. Shortly … the Norman Conquest, when the French began filling England … their wine, the kings decided they were entitled … something … their own cellars and claimed five percent … whatever wine came … .
4. The US Customs Service, based … the British model, was formed … 1789, put … the auspices … the newly created Treasury.
5. The first duty ever collected … the New World, $774.71, was paid … a cargo brought … … Italy … August … that first year.
6. … fact, … that day … the start … World War I, the US Customs Service was the government’s sole source … revenue.
Task 12. What places of concealment are mentioned in the text? Do you know any other places of concealment?
Task 13. Answer the following questions.
1. What year does the custom of Customs date from?
2. Whom did King Etherbald grant the dues of two ships?
3. Who set up a collection post for ships sailing the Thames past King’s Wharf?
4. When did the King of England claim five percent of whatever wine came in?
5. When was the New Custom Act approved?
6. What did it create?
7. What was the role of Customs Controllers?
8. What did the Chercheurs do?
9. When was the US Customs Service formed?
10. During what period was the US Customs Service the only source of revenue for the government?
Task 14. Translate the following text into Russian.
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) was formed on the 18 April 2005, following the merger of Inland Revenue and HM Customs and Excise Departments. The Department is to ensure the correct tax is paid at the right time. The following taxes are collected:
- direct taxes (Income Tax, Capital Gains Tax, Inheritance Tax etc.)
- indirect taxes (Excise duties, VAT, Petroleum, Revenue Tax, Insurance Premium Tax etc.)
Task 15. Summarize the text.
Text II
Pre-reading
Task 1. You are given two verbs “to sew” and “to sew”. They look the same but are absolutely different in their meaning. Consult the dictionary and find the difference. Give the forms and mind the pronunciation.
Task 2. Look up the pronunciation of the following words in the dictionary: sewer, tag, auction, amateur, reward, innocent, trait.
Task 3. Translate the following words.
English Russian
flight …
… аукцион
… склад
amateur …
reward …
tip-off …
… смена, дежурство
… досмотр
queue …
… штраф
Task 4. Translate the following word combinations.
a) to reflect the trend
b) amateur smuggling
c) sixth sense
d) to screen passengers
e) guilty passengers
f) tell-tale traits
g) to weight up attitudes
h) to pick luggage off the conveyor belt
Task 5. Whom do we call “the professionals” in comparison to “the amateurs”?
Anything to declare?
Once a month a sad ritual is performed at the Queen’s Warehouse at Heathrow. Four Customs men open hundreds of bottles of impounded liquor, and invert them into crude wooden bottle racks. The spirit pours directly into a main drain, called the Queen’s Sewer, thus foiling anyone who might want to catch and rebottle the evil, eye-watering mixture of wines and strange spirits.
The cloying scent of alcohol is sharpened by tobacco fumes as cartons of cigarettes and cigars are burned in an incinerator known as the Queen’s Pipe.
The warehouse is a large basement in the main Customs House on the north side of the airport, conveniently close to the police station. It is stuffed with goods seized by Customs in the Queen’s name. The shelves are crammed with bottles, each tagged with the airline flight number and the name of the passenger it was taken from.
Some is sold off at regular auctions. But there are no buyers for the exotic, or for bottles that have export labels or airline stickers on them. It is not worth the expense of relabelling and rebottling for the home market.
So every month the doomed bottles are picked out, Yugoslav Slivovitz, Polish blackcurrant vodka, Thai Mekong whisky, sake and tequila. Occasionally a man will pause from his work before starting a jeroboam of Moet Chandon or a two-gallon bottle of Black Label Scotch on its ignominious trip to the sewage works.
The warehouse reflects the trends in amateur smuggling by passengers, since professionals nowadays often ‘smuggle’ goods by altering the import tax on invoices. The ‘traditional’ goods, as the Customs men call them, still stand out in pure volume.
The amateurs give the Customs men their biggest challenge, for least reward. The professionals, smuggling cannabis by the hundredweight and cameras by the £100,000 worth, are often caught after tip-offs. The small-time returning holidaymaker has to be detected, and all the knowledge acquired at the Customs Training School in Southend is needed.
A good nose, or what the victim might consider sixth sense, is vital. The Customs people call it ‘smuggler’s eye’. It is indefinable, of course, but it is the quality that makes a really good Customs man as he screens hundreds of passengers pouring past him on a six-hour shift. One man who had it was Liam Sumption, a legendary Irishman who pulled passengers out of the Green Channel at Heathrow for bets with his fellow officers, and is rumored never to have challenged an innocent traveler.
Every guilty passenger has tell-tale traits. The normally timid become over-boisterous, the placid bite their lips, the domineering are ingratiating, bossy women turn sweet. The ‘eye’ is mainly a question of feeling who is acting out of type.
‘A lot of people look nervous when they walk through the Green,’ says a Customs man. ‘The art is spotting types who do not seem to be naturally nervous.’ The process starts much earlier than most passengers realize – at the moment when they pick their luggage off the conveyor belt. It is there that the Customs men weight up attitudes. Most people who are stopped in the Green Channel have been earmarked for inspection from the moment they first picked up their case.
Smugglers like to go through Customs in the middle of the queue. If their bag comes up first, they will often let it go round on the conveyor belt and only pick it up after other passengers from the flight have started off through the channels. Likewise, they get agitated if the bag is late and they have to go through at the end.
Some attempts are almost as old as smuggling itself. Passengers are caught with a two-gallon bottle of Scotch, and say innocently that they thought they were allowed a single bottle duty free, irrespective of size. They put old straps on new watches and new cameras in old cases. Fur coats are picked out because they have no labels, or because the shop label that ‘proves’ the coat was not brought abroad has been sewn in by hand instead of machine and is clearly older than the coat.
‘I had one lady who challenged me to look at the Harrods label in her mink. It was Harrods all right – Harrods Man’s Shop,’ says a Customs man.
Other smugglers show a touching belief that priest, doctors and other respectable men are not searched. A house painter arrived at Heathrow with 300 watches hidden in a woman’s girdle round his waist. He was dressed as a Roman Catholic priest with a passport to match. He was fined for the watches, and imprisoned for smuggling when disguised in Holy Orders. Few amateurs have heard of section 73 of the Customs and Excise Act. It provides that anyone either armed with an offensive weapon or in disguise whilst attempting to avoid Customs duty is liable to imprisonment.
Working on the text
Task 6. Find in the text the words that follow the verbs below.
a) to reflect … e) to walk through …
b) to smuggle … f) to pick off …
c) to screen … g) to put on …
d) to pull out … h) to show …
Task 7. Find in the text the words/phrases that have the following meanings.
1. to carry out
2. to value
3. something difficult, a problem
4. to notice, to discover
5. to check
6. to risk money on the result of something (game, competition, other future evens)
7. signs etc. that clearly show something has happened, often something that is a secret
8. to consider something carefully so that you can make a decision about it
9. something that you wear to change your appearance and hide who you are
10. to deliberately not to do something
Task 8. Find the beginning of the sentences.
1. … a large basement in the main Customs House.
2. … of relabelling and rebottling for the home market.
3. … in amateur smuggling by passengers.
4. … are often caught after tip-offs.
5. … is vital.
6. … tell-tale traits.
7. … weigh up attitudes.
8. … as old as smuggling itself.
9. … are not searched.
10. … is liable to imprisonment.
Task 9. Make up the sentences about the currency of the given countries according to the model.
The UK / pound sterling / 100 pence → The standard unit of the currency of the UK is the pound sterling subdivided into 100 pence.
1. The US / dollar / 100 cents
2. The EU / euro / 100 cents
3. Canada / Canadian dollar / 100 cents
4. Australia / Australian dollar / 100 cents
5. The Russian Federation / rouble (ruble) / 100 copeks
6. Egypt / pound / 100 piastres
Task 10. Translate the following phrases.
1. a sad ritual is performed;
2. close to the police station;
3. goods seized by Customs;
4. amateur smuggling;
5. “smuggler’s eye”;
6. innocent traveler;
7. guilty passenger;
8. tell-tail traits;
9. earmarked for inspection;
10. in the middle of the queue;
11. either armed with an offensive weapon or in disguise;
12. to be liable to imprisonment.
Task 11. Give synonyms to the following words.
- to perform - to screen
- goods - to walk through
- to seize - passenger
- tip-offs - to realize
- to be worth - to be liable to
Task 12. Divide the following words into 3 categories:
perform, sad, Customs, spirit, regular, buyer, export, amateur, smuggling, smuggle, smuggler, professional, professionals, tax, challenge, detect, passenger, guilty, nervous, inspect, inspector, queue, duty, challenge, search, imprisonment.
Task 13. Answer the following questions.
1. What is the Queen’s sewer?
2. What is the Queen’s pipe?
3. What are the “traditional goods”?
4. What is the “smuggler’s eye”?
Task 14. Write down five tricks that smugglers use.
Task 15. Problem question.
Why do people smuggle?
Task 16. Summarize the text.
Text III
Pre-reading
Task 1. Translate the following words.
English Russian
security …
… оружие
x-ray machines …
… взрывчатые вещества
… оборудование
… твердые, жидкие, газообразные вещества
development …
deployment …
Task 2. Look up the pronunciation of the following words in the dictionary:
scan, bomb, screen, alert, radio frequencies, ceramic.
Task 3. Constitute the word family including the word “detect”.
Task 4. Form new parts of speech with the help of the given suffixes and prefixes. Consult a dictionary. Mind the spelling.
expose (-ure)
large (-ly)
(un-) changed
detect (-or)
introduce (-tion)
equip (-ment)
occasion (-ly)
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