What made Sam’s Mum write a message?
Is Sam going to clean the room? Why do you think so?
II. Listen to the conversation and answer the questions below.
Where was Tina going to?
What happened at the airport?
Why was Tina scared during the flight?
III. Let’s talk about art.
№ 8
I. 1. Read the story and say in 2—3 sentences what it is about.
Great grandad
It was a funny and surprising thing that brought Grandad back to me. It was algebra. I couldn’t cope with algebra in my first year at secondary school, and it made me mad. “I don’t see the point of it,” I screamed. “I don’t know what it’s for!”
Grandad, as it turned out, liked algebra and he sat opposite me and didn’t say anything for a while, considering my problem in that careful expressionless way of his.
Eventually he said, “Why do you do PE1 at school?”
“What?”
“PE. Why do they make you do it?”
“Because they hate us?” I suggested.
“And the other reason?”
“To keep us fit, I suppose.”
“Physically fit, yes.”
He reached across the table and put the first two fingers of each hand on the sides of my head.
“There is also mental fitness, isn’t there? I can explain to you why algebra is useful. But that is not what algebra is really for.”
He moved his fingers gently on my head.
“It’s to keep what is in here healthy. PE is for the head. And the great thing is you can do it sitting down. Now, let us use these little puzzles here to take our brains for a jog2.”
And it worked. Not that I fell in love with algebra. But I did come to see that it was possible to enjoy it. Grandad taught me that maths signs and symbols were not just marks on paper. They were not flat. There were threedimensional, and you could approach them from different directions. You could take them apart and put them together in a variety of shapes, like Lego. I stopped being afraid of them.
I didn’t know it at the time, of course, but those homework sessions helped me to discover my Grandad. Algebra turned out to be the key that opened the invisible door he lived behind and let me in.
Now I learnt that Grandad’s world was full of miracles and mazes3, mirrors and misleading signs. He was fascinated by riddles and codes and labyrinths4, by the origin of place names, by grammar, by slang, by jokes — although he never laughed at them — by anything that might mean something else. I discovered My Grandad.
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1 PE [ˌpiːˈiː] физкультура
2 to take our brains for a jog [əˈdʒɒɡ] шевелитьмозгами
3 a maze [meɪz] путаница
4 a labyrinth [ˈlæbərɪnθ] лабиринт
2. The author says she had problems with algebra. Find this extract and read it aloud.
3. How did the girl’s Granddad help her understand the subject?
4. What else did the author understand about her Granddad?
II. Listen to the member of the Greenpeace organisation telling a story about whales and answer the questions below.
How did Uncle Roger explain to the boy why the whales were on the beach?
How did the people help them?
How did this event affect the story-teller’s life?
III. Let’s talk about your future career.
№ 9
I. 1. Read the interview with a British businessman and say in 2—3 sentences what it is about.
AN INTERVIEW
Journalist: Do people in your country depend a lot on technology for communication?
Businessman: Yes. Everybody’s using all kinds of phones, mobiles and Internet services. I think the benefits of the computers cannot be denied. They save valuable time and space. Timeconsuming tasks such as checking bank accounts can now be done in a matter of minutes and a large volume of information is economically stored on tiny disks. In addition, with immediate access to the Internet, we can always keep up with global and current issues and explore the world from the comfort of our homes.
Journalist: Do you manage to keep up with the development of technologies?
Businessman: I think the fact that methods in business have moved ahead at such speed has meant that we generally have to keep up with it all, whether we want to or not. Otherwise, we’ll be left behind. In fact this need to keep up has also entered the home, where a lot of people spend much money on computer equipment when all they do is play games.
Journalist: How different would everyday life be without technological means of communication?
Businessman: Of course, life would be very different without all these means of communication. For those working in the world of business, life would be much more difficult as it would take much longer to get in touch with other companies and to come to agreement on important matters. Basically, if we didn’t have email systems at home or mobile phones, etc., it wouldn’t be the end of the world. I mean, we survived before, didn’t we?
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Journalist: How do you feel about mobile phones?
Businessman: I personally find them useful and necessary. They’re convenient if there’s an emergency on a business trip or when you’re in the middle of nowhere or need to contact the police or your family for example. Though, I do feel that they are overused in many cases. Think about how many people spend hours just chatting about silly, unimportant things or looking through sites for no special reason even at work.
2. What are the benefits of the computers? Read aloud the extract which describes them.
3. How do businessmen benefit from using technological means of communication at their workplace?
4. When are technological means of communication misused?
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