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Файл:Международный экзамен по английскому языку. Устный ответ
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Устный ответ 111
Frankly speaking, modern youth is quite different from
the youth of previous years. They are better educated; they
enjoy more freedom, more money to spend. I think that all
the parents should understand that life has changed since
their youth. Unfortunately, sometimes the parents believe
that their critical comments could encourage their off
springs to greater efforts. They, however, have got the
opposite effect. After a good portion of criticism the child
loses a great deal of his confidence. The lack of selfconfid
ence which is based on ignorance and narrowmindedness
leads to despair; the young people feel shy, clumsy, awk
ward; their hearts are easily broken. In such a situation
their parents’ authority will cause them great unhappiness.
Instead, it is better to rebel against your own inability to
cope with your own problems and start from scratch; find
the support and approval among your friends, contempo
raries and, of course, your parents. Nevertheless, your
parents are not always right. They are used to saying that
the youngsters are not the same what they used to be. It is
obvious that every new generation is different from the
one that preceded it. On the one hand, we observe constant
conflicts, on the other hand, extreme permissiveness which
provides disappointment and the feeling of frustration
and, therefore, the failure in making a success. Thus it is
necessary to distinguish extreme permissiveness from self
confidence; selfconfidence is always a result of a success
ful education and democratic relationships among all the
members of the family. On top of everything, selfconfid
ence is necessary to gain the firm social position in the
society. As for me, I am going to become a top manager in
economics and I’ll try to do my best to be a success. I be
lieve that selfconfidence will help me in taking risks. But
I can’t do without my family that supports me in setting
goals and getting my ideas across. Before making a decision
112 Как успешно дать устный ответ
I always listen to my parents’ advice, I rely on their expe
rience and share their insights.
I know that it is difficult to foresee what will happen
in future, but I am sure that my success will depend to a
large degree on my abilities and the mutual understand
ing with my family.
Give an OPINION. (150–170 words; response time — 60 seconds)
Family life is the most important aspect of the social
life in any society. But the greatest problem inside any
family is a question of the gap between generations. There
is no definition to this notion. But the problem still exists.
On the one hand, we observe constant conflicts, on the
other hand, extreme permissiveness which provides disap
pointment and the feeling of frustration and, therefore,
the failure in making a success. Thus it is necessary to dis
tinguish extreme permissiveness from selfconfidence.
I believe that selfconfidence will help me in taking
risks. But I can’t do without my family that supports me
in setting goals and getting my ideas across. Before mak
ing a decision I always listen to my parents’ advice, I rely
on their experience and share their insights.
I know that it is difficult to foresee what will happen in
future, but I am sure that my success will depend to a large
degree on the mutual understanding with my family.
Практика
*Task 2.
1. Squeeze the main thesis of the text.
2. Clarify the supporting ideas to the main thesis.
3. Define the Introduction.
Устный ответ 113
4. Define the Conclusion.
5. Point out the transitions and conversational formulas.
6. DEFINE and EXPLAIN the concept ‘family’. (150–180 words; re=
sponse time — 60–90 seconds)
TEXT 2
The Family Is One
of the Nature’s Masterpieces
A vocabulary defines a family as “people who are closely
related”. Psychologists usually refer to a family a mother,
a father and their children, who are either twins or sib
lings, as a nuclear family. Some of them are oneparent or
single parent families. They usually call all the family in
cluding aunts, uncles, nephews, cousins, nieces, grandpar
ents, daughters and sonsin law as an extended family.
George Orwell (1903–1950) wrote that he came from a
“stuffy Victorian family, with not many black sheep in it
but with all its cupboards bursting with skeletons (family
secrets). It has rich relations and poor relations, and there
is a deep conspiracy about the source of income. It is a fam
ily in which the young are generally thwarted and most of
the power is in hands of irresponsible uncles and bedridden
aunts. Still it is a family”.
To my mind there is no exact definition, what a family
is. It is definitely a fabulous phenomenon, cemented by
blood, which is thicker than water. It is really a master
piece and as every genius creation of humanity it is im
mortal. Its roots date back to prehistoric times, and it has
made a long way from polygamy to monogamy.
Like a real masterpiece it constantly changes preserv
ing its essence. Prehistoric mother used to be as caring,
overprotective and ambitious about their adorable off
springs, as all today’s mothers are. Most of the families
114 Как успешно дать устный ответ
start with marriages, which are said to be made in heaven.
Ancient philosopher Diogenes said: “Marriage is the great
est earthly happiness when founded on complete sympa
thy.” Like every masterpiece this highly personal matter
is strictly controlled and supported by law. Young people
nowadays are to understand that it is not enough to promise
to love and cherish each other, it is important to realize
that they have taken a big step both legally and financial
ly by deciding to get married. A husband is entitled to a
married man’s allowance, and both husband and wife can
claim tax relief. They start sharing common property and
if they decide to separate they will have to agree who gets
the custody over their children and set the proposed arrange
ments for children to meet both parents. In fact, it is such
a fragile social organization that a slight error can cause
unpredictable consequences. Crime statistics show that 70%
of the murderers, maniacs, muggers and misfits are products
of the broken families.
As it often happens to a masterpiece too much perfec
tion can spoil it. Sometimes the parents believe that their
critical comments would encourage their children to greater
efforts. Sadly, they have exactly the opposite effect. After
a number of criticism the child loses not only his interest
in creating, but a great deal of his confidence. So being an
ideal parent is a very delicate task demanding tact, patience
and diligence. A wise parent remembers that it is all too
easy to be destructive while attempting to be constructive.
Of course, parents must point out mistakes for progress to
be made. Yet acid comments designed to improve perform
ance can unintentionally increase anxiety and undermine
achievement.
Every masterpiece is born in pain, so it would be a mis
take to think that a happy family doesn’t face any prob
lems. However, clever and understanding parents are always
Устный ответ 115
ready to experiment and find the way out. For example,
the teenagers are very radical in their opinions. Anything
less than fulsome praise is likely to provoke hostility and
alienation. A clever parent will show how excited he is by
child’s originality and search for ways to take it further.
In this connection, a humorous story by Emma Bombeck
called “Convenient Hearing” inevitably comes to my mind.
Her son used to ignore all the comments and she tried to
communicate with him through homemade posters and
stickers, refusing to hear his questions as well.
The fantastic thing about family ties is that it always
stirs the best feelings in people. Everybody craves for a
happy family dinner for Christmas. Crestfallen orphans
dream about generous loving mothers. Prodigal sons re
turn to support their helpless parents, bound to bed. Most
flirtatious wives turn out to be the best nurses when their
husbands get seriously ill.
To finish with, I’d like to say that there are times in our
lives, when everything seems to be going badly. We all have
problems we can’t cope with. We feel depressed and dispirited
and suffer from acute anxiety and despair. We moan and
groan and think we are losers and failures. A fatherly man
ly hug or mother’s loving embrace can really restore you
from the ashes. Then I hear my Mom’s favourite words:
“You are a Fallible Human Being” and understand that
even if the whole world turns its cold shoulder on me,
there’d still be a family to turn to for love, compassion and
understanding. And as every great masterpiece the family
will remain in your soul forever.
*Task 3.
1. Squeeze the main thesis of the text.
2. Clarify the supporting ideas to the main thesis.
116 Как успешно дать устный ответ
3. Define the Introduction.
4. Define the Conclusion.
5. Point out the transitions and conversational formulas.
6. TELL your friend about teenagers and their pursuits. Give exam=
ples. (150–180 words; response time — 60–90 seconds)
TEXT 3
Teenagers and Their Pursuits
I think that teenagers should be given much responsi
bility as early as possible. It’s very good for a young crea
ture to learn to be able to take care of his things. The de
velopment of the child is affected by adults, and, of course,
by their friends and other teenagers. They learn to take
care of each other. They enjoy meeting people. Friends,
those that you choose to spend your time with and that you
love, are the most important “things” in your life. Friend
ship is something that cannot be bought or sold. Friends
can be of any age.
Teenagers pay much attention to friendship. Many teen
agers meet at each other’s houses and often go to visit
somebody and unexpectedly find other good friends there.
As for me, I like parties during which all of the young
people do the same activities together. We play word games,
write poems, perform little plays and at the end of the
evening we dance. Sometimes we go on special trips, to
concert halls or to exhibitions. Most people, as teenagers,
go out on Friday or Saturday nights, as there is no school
or college to go to early in the morning on the next day,
so they can stay up late.
The choice of places to go and spend these evenings is
different in towns and cities and in the countryside: dis
cos, concerts, theatres, cinemas. During their days off
teenagers visit friends in their houses to talk or to listen
Устный ответ 117
to music. Many young people are involved with music.
That’s why they spend a lot of evenings going out to play,
and have fun together. Being a musician helps to make
friends. I find that between musicians there’s often a com
mon understanding. There is always something you can
talk about and do together — playing music. As for a mu
sician, music is very important to me, and I’ve always
spent a lot of time listening to music. As a teenager, I have
a very good hifi system and CDs of many different types
of music: some modern music which I like and classical
music. In the classical field I appreciate Bach, Vivaldi,
Beethoven, Brahms.
All the teenagers like sports. Some enjoy playing hockey,
football, basketball or handball. Others are fond of badmin
ton, tennis or running. As for me, I prefer cart racing and
iceskating. My friend likes swimming and rollerskating.
You see, tastes differ!
Many teenagers are fond of travelling, especially on
foot. My friend travels everywhere by walking with his
large dog. He also carriers a good stick for helping him to
walk in the mountains. But a great number of teenagers
spend half of their life in front of TV. Some of them pre
fer videos to TV. Videos can be very useful as audiovisual
teaching aids, and home videos can be a good way of re
cording and remembering events and things that have hap
pened, and also for storing information.
In this day and age, there are many available methods
of communication. I know that now by using computer
networks, it is possible for people to send messages to each
other by email, from one computer to another one, and the
teenagers can even sit and have online conversation, tak
ing it in turns to send messages to each other, each takes
little time to transfer. Nowadays, many young people are
fond of working online. The Internet seems really good
118 Как успешно дать устный ответ
fun. It’s easy and quick to open up applications and do all
sorts of things: to shift text and change the lettering style
and size. It’s great.
Even in this age of computers, I still feel that the great
est way of expanding our knowledge is by reading. If you
want to be interesting, to be a source of information, you
must know a lot. A wellread person is much more prefer
able in any company. I believe that tastes differ. The tastes
of teenagers are also different. But they must be respons
ible for their choice.
*Task 4.
1. Squeeze the main thesis of the text.
2. Clarify the supporting ideas to the main thesis.
3. Define the Introduction.
4. Define the Conclusion.
5. Point out the transitions and conversational formulas.
6. DEFINE the term ‘subculture’. ILLUSTRATE your answer. (150–
180 words; response time — 60–90 seconds)
TEXT 4
Youth Culture and Beliefs
Young people today don’t make good use of their lei
sure time. I mean they do nothing creative. Moreover, the
young people nowadays are in some way lost. They don’t
expect much from life. Also they live in difficult times. On
top of everything, they want to show how different they
are from their parents and their older brothers and sisters.
If the last fashion had long hair and wide trousers, then
the next one will have short hair and narrow trousers. They
try to find out ways to enjoy themselves and their own
ways to solve their problems. Why do teenagers join a cult?
Устный ответ 119
I believe most of them want to be something and cults give
them something to be.
The term subculture refers to the relatively selfcon
scious practices by young people to shape and define their
own group identities through a variety of cultural forms.
People often use the term subculture to mean type. Aspects
of youth style include dress, musical tastes, language, ges
tures and forms of behaviour. By examining music, ways
of dress and hairstyles we can see how members of this or
that group created their own subcultural style.
Punks started up in the 70s. They came from poor fam
ilies; they wore black leather, cut jeans, liked violent mu
sic and had brightly dyed hair. The Goths cult began in the
80s. They wore black clothes and silver jewellery. Their
faces were white, their makeup was black, their hair was
black, too. The most interesting thing about them was their
gloomy philosophy, interested in the dark side of life. You
know you expect young people to be optimistic and full of
life and enthusiasm, but Goths were not like that. They
were pessimistic and interested in death.
Skinheads are the most dangerous among the youth
cults. Skinheads were the most efficient social movement
of youth during the 90s. The main reason for the influence
of skinheads and attention paid to their activities is that
they have managed to express some socially significant
problems and explanations of the problems, and they have
found appropriate ways to proclaim their views. The skin
heads were not satisfied with parliamentary ways of action
and they used direct actions to solve their problems which
included violent attacks against refugees and coloured
people, attacks against young antiracists and other people
who are opposing racists. Skinheads are young people aged
13 to 25 years. The origin of this subculture can be traced
in a group of boys who lived in the same neighbourhood and
120 Как успешно дать устный ответ
were in nearby secondary or vocational schools. These boys
have some problems with the local authorities because of
their troubled behaviour. They are mostly from upper
middleclass families and have either professional or com
pleted secondary education. But there are many boys from
working class or lower middleclass families who haven’t
completed secondary education or professional training.
They take aspects of working class background, they wear
jeans, exarmy clothing and big boots. In the beginning of
the 90s they began to adopt features of skinhead outlook.
They also began to study and assume skinhead ideology
and its values. The skinhead violence against refugees and
coloured people began from 1992, and since then they have
quarrelled with other foreigners and antiracist young
people and even with coloured passersby. Some of the
skinheads have been sentenced to prison because of as
saults and making damages. Skinhead ideology is a collec
tion of racist, fascist and nationalist notions.
Another great problem of nowadays is drug addiction.
Drugs are very attractive for those youngsters who are
disappointed in life or lost their parents. Such teenagers
become drug addicts.
I think both parents and government should do some
thing to help the young generation, at least they should
open a national debate in all places to discuss the drug
problem. Young people all over the world are obsessed with
freedom and independence. They have more and more lei
sure, but I don’t think they know what to do with it.
*Task 5.
1. Squeeze the main thesis of the text.
2. Clarify the supporting ideas to the main thesis.
3. Define the Introduction.
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