Vocabulary

erected – воздвигнутый, сооруженный

urban – городской

city-dwellers – горожане

dual – двойной

inhabitants – обитатели, жители

storey – этаж

ANSWER THE QUESTIONS

1. When were high-rise blocks erected in large number in Britain?

2. What problems were they to solve?

3. Is it nice for people to live in such “towers”?

4. What do scientists think of it?

11. Tragedy at sea

The Titanic, the biggest, fastest and most luxurious ship in the world sank on Sunday, 14^th of April, 1912 – during its first trip. There were more than 2.000 people on board. Among the passengers there were some of the richest, most famous and important people in the world, including ten millionaires.

Just before midnight most of the passengers were sleeping or getting ready for bed. Suddenly the night watch saw a huge iceberg ahead. The crew tried to turn the ship but it was too great to turn quickly, and the speed was too high. The coming iceberg hit the Titanic on the side which made a big hole – more than one hundred meters long. Water started pouring in at once. Thomas Andrews, the ship’s designer, was sure the ship was going to sink in less than two hours. What’s worse, he as well as Captain Smith knew that the liner had only 20 lifeboats – enough to save the lives of only half the people on board.

The two radio officers started sending SOS in the ether, asking everyone who got it to come immediately. But the nearest ship, the Carpathia was four hours away. The captain ordered to abandon the ship, filling the boats with women and children first. The Carpathia arrived an hour and ten minutes after the Titanic had sunk, and rescued seven hundred and five passengers. Fifteen hundred persons had drowned, including Thomas Andrews and Captain Smith.

Vocabulary

luxurious – роскошный

crew – корабельная команда

sink-sank-sunk – тонуть, погружаться

in the ether – в эфир

abandon – покидать

rescue – спасать

drown – тонуть, топить

ANSWER THE QUESTIONS

1. When did the tragedy take place?

2. How many people were there on board?

3. What kind of ship the Titanic was?

4. What was the cause of wreck?

5. Were there enough boats to rescue all the people?

6. What did the captain order to do?

7. When did the Carpathia arrive?

8. How many people had been saved and how many people had drowned?

12. Problem children

Letter to the Editor

Dear Sir:

Teachers in some secondary schools in Britain are worried that their jobs may become impossible unless something can be done to restore discipline in the classrooms. In the problem schools, mostly in large cities, a small minority of teenage pupils deliberately disrupt lessons to such an extent that the teachers can no longer teach their classes effectively.

Some persons within the teachers’ unions consider that the permissive nature of modern society is to be blamed. Small children who are continually encouraged to express their individuality without restriction are naturally reluctant to accept school discipline when they grow older. Furthermore, modern teaching techniques, which stress personal enjoyment at the expense of serious academic work, might be teaching the child to put his own selfish interests before his duties to the community in which he lives.

Perhaps the problem can be solved by improving facilities for the psychological guidance of these difficult children or by better cooperation between the schools and the parents – because the parents may be mainly responsible for the aggressive behavior of their offspring.

But some of us believe that there ought to be a return to more “old-fashioned” methods. At present in some schools teachers may not even criticize a child who misbehaves, but I personally feel that punishment in some form should be re-introduced and that this might produce the desired results.

Ex-teacher, A. Buckingham