2. English Usage

Exercise 3. Complete each sentence with a word from the list. Use each word once only.

1) Our teacher used to...... us by making us stay behind after school.

2) The teacher saw Tom trying to.....in the test.

Cheat:	copy;
memorise; pay;
revise;	divide;
pass;	punish;
underline

3) Try to...... the most important rules.

4) It is difficult to......attention in a noisy classroom.

5) Pauline tried her best to......the end of year

examinations.

Exercise 4. Make questions beginning with the words in brackets.

6) My English textbook fell on the floor, ( What..............?)

7) We used to learn two foreign languages in the 6^th form.(When...........?)

8) I've already read «The World Class level-4» (When............?)

9) My classmates are playing basketball now. (What...........?)

10) The Geography lesson was boring yesterday (What............?)

Exercise 5. You asked your father to tell you about his school years.

Here is what your father told you.

When I went to school, there were about 50 children in a class. The teacher was very strict. When the student didn’t behave, they had to stand in a corner of the classroom. Sometimes the teacher hit the students' hands with a ruler. I was afraid of the teachers, so I behaved very well. Now use this story as a model and write down a paragraph about your school. (200-250 words)

KEY:Ex.1: 1)b 2)c 3)a 4)b 5)c

Ex.2: 6) wouldn’t behave 7)did 8)What will you tell… 9)he would go 10)his

parents had come

Ex.3: 1) punish 2)cheat 3) memorise 4)pay 5) pass

Ex.4: 6)What fell on the floor? 7) When did we use to learn two foreign languages? 8)When did you read “The World class-4”? 9) What are your classmates doing? 10)What was the geography lesson like yesterday?

Test 5 (Intermediate level)

1. Reading. Read the text and do the exercise.

The Happiest Day of My Life

I hated almost every day of my time at boarding school and, in my case , my first term was a disaster. I found it very difficult to settle down, and my unhappiness was made worse because I was also unhappy at home.

A happy home life gives you a base from which you can go into the world with confidence. But if life at home is difficult, life away at boarding school is almost impossible. Apart from having to keep to a great many rules and customs, many of which seemed to me stupid, we were never allowed to be alone. You had to be with another boy at all times. I am extremely dependent on being alone part of every day, so daily life at school was very hard for me, though the other boys managed fairy well. In the middle of the first term I developed a cough. The school nurse said it was a «stomach-cough», whatever that may be, and gave me some pills. However, playing football in a snowstorm, I suddenly could not breathe properly and was taken to the hospital ill with bronchitis and pneumonia. Almost at once I was put into a small room with another boy who was also ill. He died and I nearly did. My main memory of my stay at the hospital was that the night-nurses used to get together in my room and play cards and chat. Keeping the light on and keeping me awake when I was seriously ill didn't bother them. When I had recovered I was sent for a few weeks and missed a term. When I returned to school, I was sent to bed early because of my illness, and so managed to get a brief period alone every day. Later on, when I went into the senior part of the school, I was allowed to go to the school library by myself, which was a great improvement.

The day I left the school, the headmaster said good bye and asked whether it was a sad day for me. I replied that it was the happiest day of my life. He said I would come to think of my time at the school very differently. I said that I was sure that I would not. Though I have unhappy days since that day, I have found that my conclusions then - that nothing afterwards could ever be so bad as boarding school - have been proved true.

Exercise l. Answer the questions.

1) What gives a base to a child to be confident in the world?

2) What makes unhappiness of children worse?

3) Does the example from the text remind you any other examples from literature?

4) Have you ever heard of any happy child living in a boarding school?

5) Can you point out any advantages and disadvantages of life in a boarding school?

Exercise 2. Choose the best answer.

6) Guess the meaning of the word 'a disaster' in line I:

a) a thing never to be forgotten

b) an exciting period of time

c) an unhappy experience

7) What does the sentence 'We were never allowed to be alone' express?

Happiness, complaint, unfriendliness, sadness, anger, sense of humour, regret, shyness, fright, disappointment, delight, sorrow.

8) The author’s illness during the first term was.....

a) not so bad as he had feared

b) so serious he nearly died

c) caused by getting cold playing games in a gym

9) In the hospital he.....

a) felt very sorry for the other patients

b) was afraid to bother the nurses

c) found the nurses' behaviour disturbed him

10) When the author was leaving school, the headmaster believed the author would......

a) realise how good school life had been

b) be unhappy after he left school

c) regret his last day at school