Билет № 9

Listen to the story about a newspaper joke and answer the questions below.

1​ What difficulties did the newspaper “Springfield Voice” have?

2​ Why did the “Springfield Voice” decide to teach its enemies a lesson?

3​ What did the “Springfield Voice” write on the first of April?

Script

This happened more than fifty years ago, in a little American town called Springfield. The newspaper "Springfield Voice" had a very difficult life. The newspaper hadn't enough money and couldn't pay its workers. But it had one difficulty that was even worse. When some interesting news appeared in the "Springfield Voice", the rest of the newspapers in the town at once published the same news as their own.

At last the "Springfield Voice" decided to teach its enemies a lesson. In the morning, on the first of April, the "Springfield Voice" published the news that a coffee king whose name was Lirpa Loof had come from abroad and was going to visit Springfield. Of course, this was tremendous news in such a little town. In the afternoon, all the other newspapers in the town wrote about Mr. Lirpa Loof. One of the newspapers published an interview with the rich businessman; another newspaper gave an interesting story of his life. Another newspaper told its readers that Mr. Lirpa Loof had had a meeting with the businessmen of the town, who were planning to buy coffee from him.

The next day, April 2, the "Springfield Voice" wrote: "Of course, we are proud that the other newspapers believed our story about the rich foreign businessman Lirpa Loof. But they must not forget what the date was yesterday. Read the first, then the second word - LIRPA LOOF—from the end to the beginning, and you will see why they must not forget that day."

Билет № 10

Listen to the story about what happened to Mr. Jones on the train one day and answer the questions below.

1​ What did Mr. Jones use to do in the trains to be comfortable?

2​ Did Mr. Jones feel happy when the old gentleman sat down next to him?

3​ What did the old gentleman do with the suitcase when the train began to move?

Script

Mr. Jones liked to be comfortable, so when he got into the trains he always used to put his suitcase on the seat beside him, and pretended that it belonged to another passenger who had gone to buy something in the station.

One day he did this when the train was very crowded; the passengers came and sat in all the other seats except the one which his suitcase was lying on.

Then an old gentleman arrived, looked at Mr. Jones’s case and said, ''Is this somebody's seat?"

"Yes," answered Mr. Jones. "A friend of mine is traveling with me and he has gone to buy some cigarettes. He will return soon." Mr. Jones opened the window and looked out to make the old gentleman think that he was anxious about his friend.

"All right," said the old gentleman, "I'll sit here until your friend comes back, and then I'll stand somewhere." Mr. Jones did not feel happy about this, but he couldn’t do or say anything, because all the other passengers were watching and listening.

Several minutes passed and the train began to move. Then the old gentleman jumped up and said, "I'm very sorry, but your friend seems to have missed the train. We don't want him to be separated from his suitcase, do we?" and before Mr. Jones could do or say anything to stop him, he took his suitcase and threw it out of the window.

You can be sure that Mr. Jones never tried to play that game again.