Appendix

1. Read and translate the text below.

Dame Agatha: Queen of the Maze

Dame Agatha Christie made more profit out of murder than any woman since Lucrezia Borgia.

She published 83 books, 17 plays,9 volumes of short stories.

Her characters were: doctors, lawyers, army officers, clergymen.

As the genre's undisputed queen of the maze, she laid her plots so precisely and dropped her false leads so cunningly that few- if any - readers could guess the identity of the villian.

Her first detective story introduced the 5-ft 4-in. dandy and retired Belgian police officer Hercule Poirot. His egoism, eccentricities and the fact that for a time he had a Watsonian colleague called Hastings suggest that Christie was strongly influenced by Sherlock Holmes.

She continued to publish one or two novels a year, often plotting them in a hot bath while eating apples.

But it was the elderly, frail spinster Jane Marple who remained her favourite detective.

Gifted with as many "little grey cells" as Poirot, Miss Marple also posseses some wisdom and insight that make her Agatha Christie's alter ego. Although Poirot is gone, Miss Marple survives for at least a while longer. An unpublished manuscript in which she too passes on was locked in the Christie vault, along with Dame Agatha's autobiography. (Abridged and adapted from "Mozaika").

2. Read and translate the text below. Get ready to speak on the similar topic referring to this country.

The sum spent on books and magazines seems small. Most families take at least one daily newspaper and a Sunday paper. They may take several weekly magazines, usually including the "Radio Times". This gives them the weekly programmes of the B.B.C. The small sum spent on books does not mean that people do very little reading. Millions of cheap, paper-backed books are bought every month. There are good public libraries everywhere from which books may be borrowed. Over one million books are taken out from these libraries every weekday. In some homes, however, there is less serious reading now than there was fifty years ago. Many people prefer to listen to the radio, or look at films on television. Many people seem to prefer popular picture magazines to magazines that contain serious reading.

(A.S. Hornby. Oxford Progressive English for Adult Learners)

3. Read and translate the text below.

There is a public library in every town in Great Britain. There are branch libraries in most villages. Anyone may become a member, and it costs nothing to borrow books. Three books may be borrowed at a time, but only two may be novels. If there are four persons in the family, they can, between them, take home twelve books. These books can be kept for a fortnight, so there is no difficulty in providing the family with all the reading that is needed. If, at the end of the fortnight, you have not finished reading a book, you may renew it for another fortnight. If the book you want is out, you may ask for it to be kept for you, and if you pay the cost of a postcard, the librarian will let you know when the book has been returned and is ready for you.

Most public libraries also have a reading-room and a reference library. In the reading room there are tables and desks at which you can sit and read the daily papers and all the other important periodicals (the weeklies, monthlies and quarterlies). In the reference library there are encyclopedias, dictionaries, atlases, and numerous other books. These may not be taken away.

(A.S. Hornby. Oxford Progressive English

for Adult Learners)