Variant VII

I Read the text and do two tasks below it From the History of the Internet

The Internet began in the 1970s as a way to send information from one computer to another. It was only used by people who worked in governments and universities. But in the 1990s, it suddenly began to be more popular.

In the early 1990s, a British man Tim Berners-Lee invented the ‘Web’. With the Web it was much easier to find information on the Internet, and to move from one part of the Internet to another. By the end of the 1990s, millions of people around the world were using the Web for many different things: for example, working, shopping, playing games and studying.

In the first half of the 1990s, it was clear that the Internet and the Web were changing the world. Hundreds of new companies started on the Internet. They knew that the Internet was growing, and that it offered an easy way to do business with millions of people. The banks gave money to these new ‘Internet start-up’ companies. By the end of the 1990s there were too many of these companies. They could not all be successful, and many of them went out of business. Now, only the best of the Internet start-up companies are making money.

1 Are the statements below true (t) or false (f)?

a The Internet has been popular since 1970s.

b An American T.Berners-Lee made the Internet easier to use.

c The business people got more customers with the Web.

d Start-up business has never been risky.

e In the second half of the 20^th century many companies started their electronic business.

2 Complete the sentences 1-5 with the correct endings a-e.

1 The 1990s saw a the growth of the Internet start-up companies.

2 The first Internet users could be found b made a new kind of business possible.

3 The late 1990s saw c the Internet birth and rapid development.

4 The Internet d to do the start-up business today.

5 It is not so easy e in state offices and educational institutions.

II Read the text and choose the phrase (a, b or c) that best completes the sentences 1-5. The history of dieting

The world ‘diet’ originally meant ‘things that usually eat’, but, these days, it means eating pattern to change something. There are diets for avoiding certain chemicals, like salt, and there are diets to increase amounts of certain things. There are even diets to help people put on weight. However, we usually say ‘diet’ about losing weight.

But when did it all start? There is a story that in 1087, William the Conqueror, King of England, had become so fat that he could no longer ride his horse. He stayed in bed and drank alcohol instead of eating food to try and lose weight.

What’s important is the kinds of food you eat, because different foods contain different things our bodies need. But it has taken a long time to find out exactly what these are. When it became possible to build ships that could go on long voyages, sailors started to spend many months at sea. They also started getting a strange disease called ‘scurvy’. It became clear that they needed fruit or vegetables to survive. Today, we know that Vitamin C is the reason. Although the discovery helped their lives, nobody knew why some people got fat and others didn’t, or what to do about it. Then in the 1890s, a chemist called Wilbur Atwater began investigating how foods consisted of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. He measured the heat value of these by burning them and called a unit of this heating a ‘calorie’. This measurement he created can be seen as the start of modern food science and dieting.

1 Today when we discuss dieting, we mean

a) way of life b) special medicines c) overweight problems

2 People might get scurvy when

a) they lack Vitamin C b) stay at the sea for a long time c) do not exercise for long

3 The term ‘calorie’ was introduced by

a) King of England b) sailors c) a chemist

4 W. Atwater managed to measure

a) a unit of Vitamin C b) the heat value c) a unit of weight

5 To be physically fit and healthy, one should know

a) what his food consists of b) why some people get fat c) chemistry