К содержанию

Анатолий
Анатольевич
Eфремов

Card 53 - Reading

Раздел 2 (задания по Чтению)

9 Прочитайте тексты и установите соответствие между текстами и их заголовками: к каждому тексту, обозначенному буквами А-G, подберите соответствующий заголовок, обозначенный цифрами 1-8. Используйте каждую цифру только один раз. В задании есть один лишний заголовок.
1. A day for shopaholics5. Following a woman’s advice
2. The major entertainment of the day6. Recipe for the main dish
3. The menu of the first Thanksgiving dinner7. Lucky birds
4. Making the house ready for the holiday8. Different dates for one holiday
A The people who started to celebrate Thanksgiving Day were the Pilgrims, the English Protestant settlers, and the tribe of the Wampanoag. It was in 1621. Their meals differed greatly from the modern one. They consisted of corn, shellfish and deer meat. At those times there were a lot of wild turkey, but nobody cooked them on that day. Deer meat was the most popular food of the holiday.
B People of Canada celebrate Thanksgiving on the second Monday of October every year. It is celebrated to thank God for the past harvest and pray for the coming year. The United States, however, celebrates Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November every year. The reason behind the difference is geographical: autumn starts earlier in Canada than in America.
C Thanksgiving is the right time to decorate homes. You can add some autumn-colored pillows to the sofa, light a candle and arrange some yellow or orange flowers in a vase. Special message boards have become very popular recently. As guests arrive for Thanksgiving, let them write what they are thankful for on a paper leaf and pin it up at the board. Paper leaves can be cut from scrapbooks and painted in autumn colours.
D Watching football is definitely the most popular activity among Americans on Thanksgiving. The history of this tradition began in 1934. The reason was a great match between two football teams – the Detroit Lions and the Chicago Bears. That game turned out to be really successful. Since that time matches have been held every year (except the years of World War II) on Thanksgiving Day and have become very popular.
E Once, President Truman chose a turkey on Thanksgiving Day and sent it back to the farm. That happened in 1947. Since that time it has become a tradition. Nowadays the President selects two turkeys and frees them, in front of a large crowd. Then the turkeys are sent to a farm house to let them live in peace.
F Some people use the day after Thanksgiving Day to make trips to see family members or friends. Others use the day to go shopping. The Americans call the day after Thanksgiving ‘Black Friday’. It first got its name in 1960 in Philadelphia. At that time there were a lot of stores in the city. Many people visited the city for shopping, it was overcrowded and the local people considered it a bad black day. Nowadays ‘Black Friday’ means the beginning of the Christmas shopping season.
G In 1863 Sara Hale, an editor and writer, wrote a letter to President Lincoln and advised him to proclaim a national day of Thanksgiving. She selected the last Thursday in November because, as she said, the harvests were finished, the elections were over, and people were back from their summer vacations. She even suggested a list of dishes for the traditional holiday menu. President Lincoln liked her idea and declared a national holiday, Thanksgiving Day.

Запишите в таблицу выбранные цифры под соответствующими буквами

Текст A B C D E F G
Место действия 3 8 4 2 7 1 5

C71F27

Прочитайте текст. Определите, какие из приведённых утверждений 10-17 соответствуют содержанию текста (1 - True), какие не соответствуют (2 - False) и о чём в тексте не сказано, то есть на основании текста нельзя дать ни положительного, ни отрицательного ответа (3 - Not stated). В поле ответа запишите одну цифру, которая соответствует номеру правильного ответа.

Cirque du Soleil

Guy Laliberté was born in Quebec, Canada, in 1959. From childhood he dreamt of doing something risky in his life. He got out of his parents’ control very early and started earning money as a street performer. To amuse people, Guy played the accordion, danced and did fire eating. After several years of being on the road at the age of twenty three he decided to settle down.

In 1982 Guy Laliberté started a serious business that made him one of the richest Canadians. He began learning world circus techniques professionally. Additionally, his travel experience and his friends’ support helped him arrange the first national circus in Quebec. For the first time, Guy Laliberté managed to combine circus arts with street performance, which finally made his circus extremely popular.

When it was time to decide on a name, Guy Laliberté didn’t discuss it with anybody. He called his project Cirque du Soleil or Circus of the Sun. The decision was not made by chance, because the image of the sun reminded him of the youth and energy his artists personified.

Montreal authorities let Laliberté rent a piece of land far from the city centre. In 1984 the district was a waste land that needed major reconstruction. In spite of the high cost, the first Cirque du Soleil hall for eight hundred people was built in that area. The main office never changed its location and has become a new cultural centre in Quebec.

The main office is located in an unusual building that consists of the Studio and the Parlour, painted blue and yellow. The Studio is the place for training and the artists’ offices, while the Parlour is the home for set and costume designers. They always have a lot of work to do, because all the cloth bought for performances is initially white. To make the costumes bright, different colours are printed according to designers' sketches.

Initially the company had about seventy employees. Today it has more than four thousand artists, acrobats, divers, dancers and singers from about forty countries, speaking about twenty languages. It enables Cirque du Soleil to perform in different parts of the world at the same time. Its offices are also located in London, New York, Hong Kong, Amsterdam, Singapore, Moscow and several other cities.

Since its foundation, Cirque du Soleil has visited more than one hundred and thirty cities and welcomed more than forty million spectators. The company offers a series of thematic shows. For example, Saltimbanco invites the audience on a city tour, Love tells the story of the Beatles, and Alegria creates an optimistic mood.

However, performing is not the only priority of the company. It has initiated an international program for teenagers who are at risk. The company also organizes training courses to support circus schools in Canada. This is how Guy Laliberté keeps the right balance between business, art and philanthropy.

10 Guy Laliberté’s parents were street performers.
  • 1) True
  • 2) False
  • 3) Not stated
Ответ: 3
11 Guy Laliberte’s circus in Quebec differed from the other circus of the time.
  • 1) True
  • 2) False
  • 3) Not stated
Ответ: 1
12 Guy Laliberte’s friends helped him to choose a name for the circus.
  • 1) True
  • 2) False
  • 3) Not stated
Ответ: 2
13 The district where Cirque du Soleil was built was later renamed after the circus.
  • 1) True
  • 2) False
  • 3) Not stated
Ответ: 2
14 The main office of Cirque du Soleil is a three-coloured building.
  • 1) True
  • 2) False
  • 3) Not stated
Ответ: 2
15 All the costumes of the Cirque du Soleil artists are yellow.
  • 1) True
  • 2) False
  • 3) Not stated
Ответ: 2
16 The team of artists at Cirque du Soleil is multinational.
  • 1) True
  • 2) False
  • 3) Not stated
Ответ: 1
17 Cirque du Soleil invests money into social projects.
  • 1) True
  • 2) False
  • 3) Not stated
Ответ: 1

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