2. Read the text. For statements 1-5 choose the best answer (a, b or c).

1. The author

a) was fond of sport at school

b) preferred doing sports to reading at school

c) didn`t like doing sport at school

2. While playing football at school the author was always

1. a forward

2. a defender

3. a goalkeeper

1. Each time the author played tennis he

1. lost the game

2. dropped a racket

3. broke his arm

1. In his first boxing fight the author struck

1. a coach

2. an opponent

3. a referee

1. The author is going

1. to continue doing sport

2. to give up sport

3. to become a champion

3. Match the words in column a to the definitions in column b.

A	B
1. goal	a) the person being competed against in a sports event
2. game	b) a number of people who do smth, esp. sport, together
3. gym	c) area, marked by two posts with a net fixed behind them, on the playing field
4. racket	d) an enclosed space where people compete
5. referee	e) a large room with weights for lifting, horizontal bars and other equipment for exercising the body
6. ring	f) an organized sports activity; a part of a competition
7. team	g) a person in charge of a game who makes certain the rules are followed
8. opponent	h) an object consisting of a net fixed tightly to an oval frame with a long handle

******

1. Look through the text and choose the headline. Explain your choice

1. Talented Mr. Ma

2. The victories of the Chinese team

3. The drink of winners

4. Mr. Ma`s win

A company in Japan is selling a new drink. Their new drink is a powerful mixture of powered ginseng root, a fungus from the skin of caterpillars and reptile`s blood. This strange drink, people say, is helping Chinese women athletes to win gold medals at international athletics meetings. The Japanese firm says that this mixture can do wonderful things for ordinary people too.

Mr Ma Junwen is the trainer of the Chinese women`s athletics team. He created the recipe for this peculiar cocktail of roots and fungus and blood especially for the team. His runners train in the mountains of central China. They run 30 or 40 kilometers every day, so they are all very strong runners. But they all drink Ma`s cocktail every day too and they are winning more medals nowadays than they did before. And Mr. Ma is trying to market his odd mixture through the company in Japan. People in Japan know about Ma`s runners and they are rushing to buy a bottle of his amazing drink.

So Mr. Ma is winning, too, not only runners. Before he invented his drink, he was not a rich man, but now he is making a lot of money from the drink, and people in Japan love it!

Notes:

• ginseng - женьшень

• caterpillar - гусеница

Tennis: a bit of history

1. Read the text, using a dictionary if necessary.

There is Deck Tennis, Beach Tennis, Lawn Tennis, Real Tennis, Ring Tennis and Table Tennis.

Deck Tennis appeared in the 1920s. Like many other such games deck tennis sought to adapt to shipboard conditions a game already known to passengers as a land sport. Deck tennis is now established as a land game known as Tennis or Beach Tennis.

Deck tennis is played by either two or four people who throw a quoit or rubber ring to one another across a net suspended over the centre of the court, which is divided like a Lawn Tennis court. The size of the courts, whether for singles or for doubles, varies.

Ring tennis is a combination of tennis and quoits. It can be played by two or four players in either singles or doubles, and, as with deck tennis, it can be played in a much smaller area than Lawn Tennis.

Beach tennis can be played with the same equipment and to the same rules as ring tennis, but often the only equipment used is the ruber ring.

Lawn tennis is a game played with long-handled, oval-headed rackets, made of either wood or metal, by two (singles) or four (doubles) players. They seek to collect points by controlling and maneuvering a lively, cloth-covered, rubber ball within the confines of a court, 23-77m long and for singles play, 8-23 in wide.

The court is divided across the middle into two equal halves by a net, 0,914m high at the centre. The game was played first on grass which has remained the traditional surface in Great Britain, Australia and the USA. Now the grass at some of the most famous American clubs should be replaced by plastic surfaces.

Real tennis is a racket-and=ball game played in an indoor court. This ancient game from which lawn tennis was devised is now known as real tennis in Britain, royal tennis in Australia, and court tennis in America.

Table tennis, an indoor game, is played by two players (singles) or two pairs (doubles) facing each other and hitting a ball with a racket so that it passes over or round a net stretched midway across the surface of a table, striking its surface at each and alternately.