4. Choose the best variant to complete the sentences.

1. These were the exotic beginnings of ________________ life.

a) a crazy c) dreamy

b) an exotic d) stupid

2. Freddy Mercury threw a gigantic birthday party, hiring a jet to take ______ of his friends to Spain.

a) eighty c) seventy

b) fifty d) ten

3. “__________________________” was obviously a good bye song.

a) Bohemian Rhapsody c) Who Wants To Live Forever

b) We Will Rock You d) The Show Must Go On

5. Match the words.

1. comfortable a) impact

2. boarding b) advertisement

3. visual c) harmonies

4. newspaper d) school

5. vocal e) surroundings

6. Are you for or against pop music? Study the following arguments and develop the ideas.

FOR

1. Young people search for new rhythms and new styles.

2. The new rhythms are full of vigour and force: just what appeals to younger people. The tunes are happy and easily caught.

3. The words of the songs deal with the younger people’s world; their hopes, dreams, disappointments and joys.

4. Young people “get tremendous kicks” (as they put it) listening to this kind of music.

5. It’s an experimental kind of music: different groups are looking for new forms and sometimes achieve really.

6. The very popularity of the genre speaks in its favour. It attracts great masses of young people. Why should we deprive them of the joy they obviously get from this music?!

AGAINST

1. Before rejecting the old rhythms and styles one should know something about them. Most pop music fans don’t know.

2. The rhythms may be new and vigorous, but they lack variety, it’s the same monotonous beat again and again. The tunes are mostly primitive and as easily forgotten as caught.

3. The words of some of the songs are absolutely senseless. The songs often contain…

4. Why should one “get kicks” at all? One might get thrilled, excited, moved to tears. Does pop-music give one all these reactions?

5. Medical research has proved beyond doubt that the volume of sound produced by powerful music at some pop concerts does great damage both to the senses of hearing and to the nervous system. Indeed cases of mass hysteria are not at all unusual at pop concerts.

6. In Australia tapped pop music is used to frighten the sharks off the public beaches. Obviously the sharks’ nerves cannot endure this kind of noise.

7. What is your point of view on the following topic.

Many people say that learning music is a waste of time.

8. Read the following information as to the influence of music onto human’s health. Music & Health

Young people in Britain and America like to listen to music everywhere they go, but loud music is a new health problem.

A decibel (dB) is a unit which measures how loud a sound is. Here are the decibel counts for some everyday activities.

Sound	Decibel Level (dB)
Whispering	30
Normal	60
Busy street	70
Noisy Factory	90
Jet plane overhead	100
Thunder	110
Pop concert (near speakers)	120

A sound level of 120 d B causes pain.

Doctors have found that eight hours of listening to noises above 90 ecibels results in a temporary loss of hearing and only two hours spent in 100 decibel noise causes permanent damage.

The ‘walkman’ is especially dangerous. Recently an ear-specialist checked forty passengers on the New York subway. They were all wearing a walkman. He found the sound volume was between 95-120 decibels!