Международный экзамен по английскому языку. Стратегия и тактика письма

РАЗДЕЛ ВТОРОЙ методического пособия «Междуна родный экзамен по английскому языку. Стратегия и так тика письменной речи» называется «ПРОВЕРЬ СЕБЯ» (Check Yourself) и посвящен самостоятельной работе, которая поможет выявить, насколько успешно вы овла дели стратегией и тактикой письменной речи в экзаме национной обстановке.

Если вы тщательно следовали всем методическим ре комендациям, представленным в РАЗДЕЛЕ ПЕРВОМ данного пособия, и выполнили 50 заданий, предложен ных автором, вы на пути к успеху и теперь можете при менить полученные знания и умения на практике.

С этой целью вам предлагается выступить в роли пре подавателя экзаменатора и выполнить три задания:

1.Исправить ошибки на уровне содержания и язы ковой формы в студенческих сочинениях;

2.Самостоятельно оценить их с помощью «Оценоч ной таблицы» (Scoring chart);

3.Написать собственное сочинение на указанные те

мы.

Поскольку «погружение» в роль преподавателя экза менатора предполагает выявление вашей личной, субъ ективной оценки сочинений, ответы к вышеуказанным заданиям не предусмотрены.

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Задание 1. Revise and edit the following essays.

Assignment: Not everything scientifically possible and technologiD cally feasible is desirable or admissible. Do you agree or disagree? Give reasons.

#1. Create with Mind

We live in a fast moving world, and every day some body creates or invents something. One man, however, told me once: “Not everything that we create is desirable or ad missible.”

Statistics say that 75% of innovations are useless. For example: the pet leash was invented by two scientists from Illinois. It can mew or bark — depending on weather you want a non existent cat or dog. Ice cubes — another inven tion, which has been developed in Japan — can crackle louder according to the strength of your drink.

But some specialists say that they invent only necessary things such as smart clothes, zero point energy, robotic surgeons and so on.

My friend says that scientists and inventors have a lot of useful things to create in their thoughts and imagina tion, but only few of them are being put into practice.

I fully agree with my friend’s opinion that not every thing scientifically possible and technologically feasible is desirable and admissible. So I can say: “Create, but think ahead what you create”.

Margarita Korsakova, 17

St Petersburg

#2. To Do or Not to Do?

The 21st century is the time of information technolo gies and innovations. And there are a lot of new things

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#3. Innovations

Imagine that you go along the street or walk in the park and there is a petless leash in your hands, which can mew or bark. You like it, but how will people look at you, what will they think about you? Nowadays, there are many scientists and inventors, who create a lot of new interesting and unusual, sometimes funny, sometimes incredible things.

You can read or hear about some new innovations in mass media. Perhaps, you will be able to use it, because it will be rather efficient. Have you ever heard about a laser shaver? It was invented by a French man. The shaver gets rid of stubble by burning rather than cutting. I think, it’s efficient, interesting and it’ll be marketable among the male population. Another interesting invention is a self extinguishing cigarette, by Danish inventor. It has a con tainer of water buried near filter tip. It’s rather useful and can be feasible because if you smoke and unexpectedly fall asleep, your cigarette will self extinguish, you won’t be burnt and you avoid a fire. 78% of the smokers in Den mark said that the self extinguishing cigarette will be mar ketable and they wanted to try to use it.

On the other hand, there are many funny, amusing sto ries about different inventions. For example, glow in the dark toothpaste from America or ice cubes that crackle louder according to the strength of your drink from Japan. I think it’s interesting and funny, but it won’t be market able. People can use it for joke. It’s not serious.

Besides of different beneficial and ridiculous inno vations there are many impractical, pointless and silly inventions. Can you imagine that during the flight the economy class passengers could be carried in pressurized containers in the hold of jets? It was written in “The

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Washington Post”, though I think it was a gossip. How can people be carried in containers? I can’t imagine this. Or petless leash from Illinois which mews or barks? The 98% of the general public said that it is useless. May be only children can play with it.

As a result, I can say that scientific progress provides great discoveries and innovations, though many of them are ridiculous or useless.

Anna Alexandrova, 17

Nakhodka

#4.

Leonardo de Vinci was a great inventor. His contempo raries supposed that his inventions were absurdity, but some inventions are vital nowadays. I think that a lot of new inventions can be useless, but on the other hand some inventions can change the world, as well as Leonardo de Vinci’s inventions.

At first, you can find a lot of useless inventions: the laser shaver by Frenchman Eugene Politzer, which gets rid of stubble by burning rather than cutting. Then, the petless leash which is invented by two scientists from Illinois which can mew or bark — depending on whether you want a non existent cat or dog. Finally, the self ex tinguishing cigarette, by Danish inventor Kaj Jensen which has a container of water buried near the filter tip. “The Times” writes that 3 out of 5 inventions are useless.

Furthermore, a lot of inventions: robots, Internet, mo bile phones, computers, laptops — help people in their dai ly life. Experts say that about 95% of people in Europe have mobile phones and about 90% of people in Europe have computers.

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At last, a lot of inventions they haven a “doubtful” fu ture. On the one hand cloning can save a lot of lives, on the other hand cloning can make big problem for the man kind. My best friend wants having a clone, but I thinks, that it’s absurdity.

In conclusion, I would like to say, that not all inven tions are useful for people. But in the future everything can change.

Alexander Petrichenko

St Petersburg

#5.

Not everything scientifically possible and technological ly feasible is desirable or admissible.

Nowadays, the scientific progress is the essential part of life of the people. Everything we do and have in our everyday life is the product of the scientific progress.

Everyday people something invent new to make our life easy and comfortable. But are there only positive points in scientific progress or does it have some disadvantages?

To answer this question I remember the story of Victor Frankenstein, a student of the chemical department of the University. His terrible creature killed him master and cre ator. I suppose that in 50 years people will be able to cre ate highly organized cybergs and robots. Can they rebel against their creators? I suppose it is possible; the same thing happened in Hollywood’s block buster “The Termi nator”.

Finally, nowadays the scientist of NASA are develop Mars program and of course it’s very interesting and useful to explore this amazing red planet, but do we real ly to explore the space outer our solar system? I don’t think so…

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To conclude, I would like to say that nowadays people do many things that shouldn’t be done, for example, clon ing, genetic engineering and so on. I am sure that people must stop playing God, because it is dangerous for the future of the humanity. There is a risk of devastating our beautiful planet. Instead, we need to control our dreams and emotions to provide happiness to our chil dren!

Ilya Vasilyev

St Petersburg

#6.

We live in a modern world where almost everyday some body invents something. Nowadays, the scientific progress is usually for people. Almost all that we have in our every day life is the consequence of the scientific progress. All this inventions make our life easy. For example, different electrical devices, cars, color cinema and so on. And it’s very good and comfortable for us.

But this is a bit risky: people secretly create different things, for example, clones. Frankenstein’s terrible crea ture illustrates the devastating consequences of the inven tion. And we ask ourselves one question: “Is it desirable, admissible and safe?” Also we can suppose that very soon people could create robots (like Terminator) which would be friendly to people.

Moreover, we need to say that plants which have been polluting our planet and atmosphere for a long time they badly influence. There a lot of such factories today. So I think that in 100–200 years our planet would be with out beautiful nature, but with a lot of factories and the sky would be grey because of the pollution. And on this planet would live robots and clones but not people!

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I think it’s rather terrible and scarify! And I’d like to say that the things that we use everyday are very useful, but about creation I think that people should stop playing God because it’s really dangerous.

Evgenia Luybimova, 17

St Petersburg

Assignment: What do you think about advantages and disadvanD tages of traveling by air? Give reasons.

#1. Holiday Trip

Once, my friend decided to spend his holiday in Spain. But in the airport his mood became very bad because he was queuing at check in about 2 hours. Then this flight was de layed for 6 hours due to weather conditions. In the plane he sat near nervous and noisy children, that’s why he couldn’t sleep. As a result, my friend had awful impres sions, so he decided not to travel by air.

In my opinion, it’s necessary to think about all disad vantages, all situations that can be possible during the flight, when you travel by air for pleasure. They are: the time you should come to the airport and the luggage you should take. Of cause, you should remember that there are many advantages in traveling by air for pleasure. You can read a book or sleep, communicate with new people or plunging into thoughts.

One Russian expert said that there were many problems in traveling by air, such as queuing at check in, flight de lays, diversions of aircraft, canceling flights due to differ ent reasons. Above all, sometimes there are many air crashes. I agree with this opinion, all problems make your emotions awful and dissapoint.

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I have read in some American newspaper that 40% of Americans like traveling by air because it is a very conve nient way of traveling. Furthermore, it was explained that there were very comfortable sits, people can sleep, read, watch TV or listen to music. Many people like aircraft food.

Besides of the problems mentioned above, traveling by plane is a good opportunity to meet new friends. My sister met her husband in the airport, when she went on holiday to Moscow.

Finally, people should analyze all pros and cons of trav eling by plane. I advise you to do the same, and as a re sult, you will have more pleasant emotions during the flight.

Anna Alexandrova, 17

Nakhodka

#2. Your Flight Can Be Interesting!

When I was flying to London and I faced with a great disadvantage — diversion. How to avoid all the disadvan tages connected with traveling by air?

To my mind, you will make your flight funny if you communicate with other people. Then, it would be great to read interesting books or magazines. Secondly, you can find various people who would help you with your business.

These things will help you to avoid a great number of disadvantages such as fear to fly, bad flight attendants’ service, etc. Thus it will help you to relax during the flight and spend a couple of pleasant hours.

For example, one day I was flying to New York and my neighbors were talking for 7 hours; later, at the end of the flight, I realized that it was worth talking, because it was interesting a lot.

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While I do not like reading, my best friend always reads when he has free time. Moreover, he says that 57 per cent of the general public read in various ways of transport; therefore, it is worth reading.

Finally, during the flight you can find new friends. This is an opinion of James Samuelsson, a very famous journalist.

So, I am sure that various exciting things like commu nicating, reading, etc. will help you to escape different troubles. You know the proverb: “Do not trouble trouble, and no trouble troubles you.”

Egor Ilnitsky, 17

Kondopoga

#3. Air for Pleasure

Once my friend said: “Travelers are always discoverers, especially those who travel by air.” And I agree: during traveling by air we can communicate a lot with our friends, go to duty free shops and then we have a lot of time to relax before guided tour round the museums. However, people are sometimes afraid of traveling.

First of all, as I said before, a lot of people communi cate during their travel. For example, my mother told me once, that her best friend got married a person, who was her neighbor in the airplane; they were speaking during the flight, then changed their telephone numbers and met later again. But on the other hand, sometimes people are afraid of traveling. In this case communication is a good oppor tunity to avoid stress.

Moreover, often during queuing at check in or during flight delays a lot of people go to the duty free shops. Fur thermore, statistics say that 85% of people relax in duty free shops after frustrations at the airport. So, only fly