December 31—New Year's Eve

Actually, I can't say that New Year's Eve is a holiday but it's my most favourite time to prepare for the most popular holiday. Each person celebrates and prepares for the New Year differently, but I begin my preparation a month before the holiday. At first, I send postcards to dearest people in faraway countries, then I buy presents for my family and people nearest to me. My daughter likes to make some gifts with her own hands; it also takes time.

Walking around the city of Minsk is a lovely pastime for everybody. Everything sparkles with a lot of tinsels, lights and

garlands everywhere. Theatres and the circus provide New Year's shows. During this time in the streets there are some parades of the main characters - Ded Moroz and Snegurochka (Father Frost and Snow Maiden). They take part in the shows and give presents for children. If you believe in fairy­tales they can make any wonder for you. ©

Вопрос VI. Music isn't a combination of pleasant sounds only. It is the art that reflects life. Moreover, it reflects ideas and emotions using no words. Music is also a weapon. It fights for light against darkness, for freedom against tyranny, for humanism against barbarity. I prefer classical music. It gives me delight, pleasure, partly sensual, partly intellectual. Classical music is always a complex of emotions, excitement & at the same time love for others & a desire to do smth for them. When listening to classical music I have to combine all my feelings into one & to give it name it will be happiness.

Certainly the appreciation and understanding of real music comes in time and very much depends on the person's education and intelligence. It's especially true with such musical genres as symphony, concerto, chamber music, opera and ballet. All these enchanting melodies need patience, concentration and peace of mind.

Nowadays it's almost impossible to escape from music, even if we want to. It thunders out of every high street shop, hisses horribly through other people's stereos on public transport and blasts out of wound-down car and van windows. But, although we all can now have music wherever we go, very few of us have any real idea of the effect music has on the human system. For many years it has been assumed that musical tastes are subjective - that one person will like jazz while another prefers classical. But recent researches have shown that appreciation of music is not a matter of individual taste. Certain types of music will have a particular effect on us, regardless of whether we like them or not. For instance, some music will help us feel relaxed and peaceful, whereas other types may be stimulating to the brain, encouraging curiosity and alertness. Some music promotes loving feelings; other sounds whip up hate, jealousy, and violence. As a result, music is being used in hospitals, and doctors have found that twenty minutes of soothing music is often far more effective than tranquilizers or sleeping pills.

According to researcher Susan Burghardt, all music can be divided into three types, and each one has profound effects on the body and mind. The first is low-energetic music, the sort that makes you feel bad. Most rock music falls into this category. In fact it has been discovered that rock music makes people feel hate instead of love. The work of some classical composers, such as Debussy and Schonberg, has also been found to be harmful.

The next category is high-energy music. This makes you feel better and it can help to normalize heart rate. J. S. Bach is exceptionally high energy.

The third category is prayerful music. This is the most healing of all. Much of the classical music written before 1600 falls into this category. It seems that most Jazz and Country and Western is simply neutral, having neither a healing nor harming effect.

Scientific work on the healing power of music started with plant research in the 1970s. Many types of classical music speeded plant growth, whereas heavy metal caused plants to draw away from the speakers and die.

Thus music can really be called a universal language understandable not only to people, but also to our bodies and plants. Generally speaking the reaction on music is very subjective. As the English proverb goes: " One's man meat is another man's poison." In fact any music can be comprehended and interpreted in different ways. To my mind this is the most appealing feature of music. It's highly democratic and free from any sort of dictatorship. That makes it the most universal common language of mankind nowadays and ever.

Вопрос VII. Text 1 Contemporary life is impossible without reading. The influence of literature on people's mind is great. Regular reading enriches your knowledge of the world and helps to form your entire personality. If a book appeals to you, it arouses lots of feelings and emotions in your heart. If you take to reading, the world of other people's ideas and problems becomes familiar to you. The process of reading demands much thinking on the part of the reader because reading exists not only for entertainment. When you are taken away by a thrilling plot and by author's vivid imagination or by his humorous remarks or by the way he portrays people, you can't help reading the book from cover to cover, when the life of a literary character is similar to yours, you take described events close to heart. If you feel that you lack information, knowledge, and words to express your opinions - read more! Thanks to books we can talk to people who lived in different countries and ages. A book is one of the greatest wonders of the world. It gives you a unique chance to link up with authors who lived hundreds and thousands years ago. The book is a faithful and undemanding friend. It can be put aside and taken up again at any moment. Read more and you'll never be bored!

Text 2 To my mind there's nobody who isn't connected with art. Books, cinema, TV, theatre, music & painting are inseparable parts of modern life. Literature is the most popular & valuable part among them. It gives us pleasure & joy. That is why many people consider reading to be a way of pleasant time spending. Of course it is so. But the role of reading in our life is more serious & more important. Literature forms our outlook, our feelings & character, it helps us to discover what we are. Reading teaches us to live, enriches our experience with that of other people, it captures our imagination & teaches us to know better the human soul. Books wake up in our hearts love for arts & teach us to be ready for the fight for truth & kindness. Aitmatov said that the main aim of literature is to teach people humanity. Reading is a source of knowledge & books are our best friends & reliable companions for the whole life. Literature is rich enough to satisfy everybody's tastes & demands.

Many centuries ago books were rare & expensive. Besides it was time when books were burned, reading people were persecuted, well-read men became politically suspected. But nevertheless people longed for reading. Nowadays when books are available for everybody, children have lost their interest in books. Television & video films have replaced literature. Pupils read only books that are included in the school curriculum & don't want to read additional literature. They don't think that books are worth spending time on. That is why parents should teach their children to love books & read them. They should find ways to excite curiosity, to interest them in reading. They must explain the importance of this process to their children. Besides they should do it from the very childhood, they shouldn’t wait until their children grow up & find other interests. I'm grateful to my parents for my love to books. In my childhood they often bought me beautifully printed books with pictures. When I couldn't read yet myself, my mother always read aloud to me. She tried to read in an emotional tone, so I always looked forward to her reading. In this way she led me tactfully & delicately to reading. You see at an early age my reading was directed by my parents. So books have been with me since childhood. I read «Alice in the Wonderland» and «Mowgli». I travelled with Marry Poppins to her imaginary world. I imagined myself to be Robinson Crusoe on the deserted island. Later I was given absolute freedom in choosing books according to my taste.

Nowadays we have a variety of styles & ways in literature. There are a lot of new, young authors. It helps people of different ages & tastes to find a book according to their demands & likes. There are books of adventure, historical novels, romances, detectives, fantastic novels, scientific, political, humorous books, volumes of verses, novels, philosophical works, critical studies (they say books about books are useless, but they certainly make very pleasant reading), biographies. There are books to read when you are ill, and books to read when your brain wants smth to work at; there arre books that you have always wanted to read but in the hurry of life at home have never found time to; there are books to read at sea; there are books for bad weather; there are books chosen solely for their length, which you take along when you have to travel light, and there are books you can read when you can read nothing else.

I've got a rich library at home, but of course it is a very small part of the world literature. That's why I often visit our local library. It's well-equipped with a good stock of books. There's a lending department & a reading room. The librarians are well-read, well-trained. They can give us advice about books & recommend books to us. Of course our local library isn't so large as the famous British Library in London which contains the richest collection of books in the world in over 400 languages. Our library isn't used by people from all over the world - by personal visits, by telephone, by post & by internationally-linked computer networks as the British Library. But nevertheless it takes a great place in the cultural life of our town.

Books are inseparable part of our life & I don't think that they can be substituted by TV, radio or smth else. Of course there are a lot of sources of information & knowledge, we can learn life without books, but I know nothing what can stir up my imagination & develop my intellect so much. Nothing except books makes me think, suffer & worry so much. Reading is the best way of removing tiredness & tension, of getting new energy. Books help me understand not only other people & characters but they make me create & discover myself. To my mind literature is immortal, it's the most long eternal among other arts.