Задание№1
Заполните пропуски:
- Mrs james, I’d like to introduce my brother Pat
- ______________________________________
Варианты ответов:
· What are your first impressions of Britain?
· How do you do?
· He’s quite different from I expected.
· When are you leaving?
Задание№2
Заполните пропуски:
- Apparently it’s going to turn colder and freeze later on
- ____________________________________________
Варианты ответов:
· I think you are mistaken
· No. Today is much better than yesterday
· A big improvement on what we’ve been having.
· Yes. Quite different from the forecast.
Задание№3
Заполните пропуски:
- Give Tony the best wishes and tell him not to overwork.
- ____________________________________________
Варианты ответов:
· I don’t think you’re interested in his health
· Thank you very much. I’ll tell him what you said.
· I think he’ll been off work for a day or two.
· I’ll try to give him your regards.
Задание№4
Заполните пропуски:
- Surely you can eat another piece of cake.
- __________________________________
Варианты ответов:
· I don’t think so
· Sorry, it isn’t delicious
· No thanks really. I’m on a diet.
· I prefer anythig else.
Задание№5
Заполните пропуски:
- Woul you care for a cup of tea?
- _________________________
Варианты ответов:
· Yes and more sugar please
· Only if it’s not too much trouble
· Thank you, I prefer to drink tea at home
· No, I’d like another slice of cake
Задание№6
Заполните пропуски:
- Wouldn’t you like to stay for a snack?
- _______________________________
Варианты ответов:
· No thanks. I supposed to be slimming
· I’m on a diet
· That’s very kind of you, but I mustn’t be too late.
· I don’t like the way you cook.
Задание№7
Заполните пропуски:
- Would you like tyo come to a football match with me tonight?
- ___________________________________________________
Варианты ответов:
· That would be very nice. Thank you.
· I like football but I don’t want to go with you
· May be, call me later.
· I prefer basketball
Задание№8
Заполните пропуски:
- Would you like to order your meal, sir?
- _______________________________
Варианты ответов:
· I’m not sure that I want to have dinner at your retaurant.
· Yes, I’ll think I have a mushroom omelette.
· Your prices are very high.
· I’d like to see the manager.
Задание№9
Заполните пропуски:
- Can I reserve a double room from Sunday till Tuesday with view of the sea?
- ___________________________________________________________
Варианты ответов:
· Such rooms are very expensive. Are you ready to pay a lot of money?
· ₤50 a night excluding service.
· You can have room 25, overlooking the sea.
· We haven’t vacancies.
Задание№10
Заполните пропуски:
- I’m trying to find a green coat in size 34
- _______________________________
Варианты ответов:
· It’s very expensive for you.
· Woldn’t you like to find it at the Second Hand?
· ₤56 please
· Would you like to try on this one?
Страноведение
| The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland | ||||
| ||||
Territory of the Kingdom of Great Britain
| ||||
| Capital | London 51°30′N 0°07′W | |||
| Language(s) | English Welsh (Wales) Scottish Gaelic (parts of Scotland) | |||
| Government - Monarch - Prime minister | Constitutional monarchy Queen Elizabeth II Tony Blair | |||
| Area | 230,977 km2 |
The United Kingdom is an abbreviation of “The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”. It is often further abbreviated to “UK”, and the political name of the country which is made of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Several islands off the British coast are also part of the United Kingdom (for example, the Isle of Wight, the Orkneys, Hebrides and Shetlands, the Isles of Scilly), although the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are not. However all these islands do recognize the Queen.
Great Britain is the name of the island which is made up of England, Scotland and Wales and so it does not include Northern Ireland. The origin of the word “Great” is a reference to size. In everyday speech “Britain” is used to mean “The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”.
The British Isles is the geographical name that refers to all the islands off the north-west coast of the European continent: Great Britain, the whole of Ireland (Northern and Southern), the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. But it is important to remember that Southern Ireland - that is the Republic of Ireland – is completely independent.
With an area of 209,000 km² the island of Great Britain is the largest of the British Isles. It is the largest island in Europe, and eighth largest in the world. It is the third most populous island after Java and Honshū.
Great Britain stretches over approximately ten degrees of latitude on its longer, north-south axis. Geographically, the island is marked by low, rolling countryside in the east and south, while hills and mountains predominate in the western and northern regions. Before the end of the last ice age, Great Britain was a peninsula of Europe; the rising sea levels caused by glacial melting at the end of the ice age caused the formation of the English Channel, the body of water which now separates Great Britain from continental Europe at a minimum distance of 21 miles (34 km).
In addition to the mainland, Great Britain includes over 100 smaller islands: the Isles of Scilly, St Michael's Mount, the Isle of Wight, Lindisfarne, Lundy, Mersea Island, the Isle of Sheppey, the Isle of Portland, and Steepholm in England; Anglesey, Bardsey Island, Skomer, Skokholm, Caldey Island and Ramsey Island and Flat Holm in Wales; and the Isles of Arran, Bute, the Cumbraes, the Inner Hebrides (including Skye, Mull, Islay, Jura, Coll, Tiree, Rum, Eigg, Muck, Colonsay and Oronsay), the Outer Hebrides (principally comprising Lewis, Harris, Benbecula, North Uist, South Uist and Barra), the Orkney Islands, Shetland Islands, the Monach Islands, the Flannan Islands and the St. Kilda group in Scotland. The islet of Rockall, over 180 miles west of St. Kilda (towards Iceland) is included, though other nations dispute the UK's claim on this territory.
The climate of Great Britain is milder than that of other regions of the Northern Hemisphere at the same latitude, because the warm waters of the Gulf Stream pass by the British Isles and exert a moderating influence on the weather. Cool, but not cold, temperatures, clouds more often than sun, and abundant rain are the rule in most years.
The most popular sport is football, which has an enormous lead over its rivals except in Wales, where rugby union is generally perceived from outside as being the national sport. Cricket is popular in England, but is less important in the other home nations. Major individual sports include Dinghy racing, athletics, golf, motorsport, and horseracing. Tennis is the highest profile sport for the two weeks of the Wimbledon Championships, but otherwise struggles to hold its own in the country of its birth. Many other sports are also played and followed to a lesser degree.The United Kingdom has given birth to more major sports than any other country including: Football (soccer), tennis, squash, golf, boxing, rugby (rugby union and rugby league), cricket, snooker, billiards, badminton and curling. It has also played a key role in the development of sports such as boxing, Sailing and Formula One.
English literature emerged as a recognisable entity in the late 14th century. The English novel became a popular form in the 18th century, with Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1719), Samuel Richardson's Pamela (1740) and Henry Fielding's Tom Jones (1745).After a period of decline, the poetry of Robert Burns revived interest in vernacular literature. In the early 19th century, the Romantic period showed a flowering of poetry comparable with the Renaissance two hundred years earlier, with such poets as William Blake, William Wordsworth, John Keats, and Lord Byron. The Victorian period was the golden age of the realistic English novel, represented by Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters (Charlotte, Emily and Anne), Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy.Other well-known novelists include Arthur Conan Doyle, D. H. Lawrence, George Orwell, Salman Rushdie, Mary Shelley, J. R. R. Tolkien, Virginia Woolf and J.K. Rowling.
The United Kingdom also has a vibrant tradition of theatre. Theatre was introduced to the UK from Europe by the Romans and auditoriums were constructed across the country for this purpose.
William Shakespeare, chief figure of the English Renaissance, is here seen in the Chandos portrait.
The most famous playwright in the world, William Shakespeare, wrote around 40 plays that are still performed in theatres across the world to this day. They include tragedies, such as Hamlet (1603), Othello (1604), and King Lear (1605); comedies, such as A Midsummer Night's Dream (1594—96) and Twelfth Night (1602); and history plays, such as Henry IV, part 1—2. The Elizabethan age is sometimes nicknamed "the age of Shakespeare" for the amount of influence he held over the era. Other important Elizabethan and 17th-century playwrights include Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe, and John Webster. Important modern playwrights include Alan Ayckbourn, John Osborne, Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard, and Arnold Wesker.
Politics of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland take place in the framework of a constitutional monarchy in which the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government. It is a pluriform multi-party system with a partial devolution of power in Scotland, Wales, and sometimes Northern Ireland. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the two chambers of Parliament, the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.
The head of state, theoretical and nominal source of executive, judicial and legislative power in the UK is the British monarch, currently Queen Elizabeth II. However, sovereignty in the UK no longer rests with the monarch, since the English Bill of Rights in 1689, which established the principle of Parliamentary sovereignty. None-the-less the monarch is still known as the Sovereign.
Queen Elizabeth II
Today the Sovereign has an essentially ceremonial role restricted in exercise of power by convention and public opinion. However the monarch does continue to exercise three essential rights: the right to be consulted, the right to advise and the right to warn.
In formal terms, the Crown in Parliament is sovereign even though in practical terms the political head of the UK is the Prime Minister (Tony Blair since 2 May 1997).
Tony Blair, current British prime minister and leader of the British Labour Party.
The Government performs the Executive functions of the United Kingdom on behalf of the Sovereign, in whom executive power is theoretically and nominally vested. The monarch appoints a Prime Minister as the head of Her Majesty's Government, guided by the strict convention that the Prime Minister should be the member of the House of Commons most likely to be able to form a Government with the support of the House. In practice, this means that the leader of the political party with an absolute majority of seats in the House of Commons is chosen to be the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister then selects the other Ministers which make up the Government and act as political heads of the various Government Departments. About twenty of the most senior government ministers make up the Cabinet.
Parliament is the centre of the political system in the United Kingdom. It is the supreme legislative body (i.e., there is parliamentary sovereignty), and Government is drawn from and answerable to it. Parliament is bicameral, consisting of the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
Parliament meets at the Palace of Westminster
The UK is divided into parliamentary constituencies of broadly equal population (decided by the Boundary Commission), each of which elects a Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons. One party usually has a majority in Parliament, because of the use of the First Past the Post electoral system, which has been conducive in creating the current two party system.
The House of Lords is a hereditary, aristocratic chamber.
The United Kingdom is said to have a unitary state with a devolved system of government. This contrasts with a federal system, in which sub-parliaments or state parliaments and assemblies have a clearly defined constitutional right to exist and a right to exercise certain constitutionally guaranteed and defined functions and cannot be unilaterally abolished by Acts of the central parliament.
| £1 coin (Welsh design, 2000) | |
 
| |
| Queen Elizabeth II | Welsh dragon |
£10 Bank of England note.
£20 Bank of England note.
The United Kingdom is a free market economy. It has the fifth largest gross domestic product in the world in terms of market exchange rates and the sixth largest by purchasing power parity (PPP). It has the second largest economy in Europe (after Germany), as well as being a member of the European Union and the G8 and possessing a seat in the permanant security council of the UN. The capital, London, is one of the two largest financial centres in the world, along with New York City. The British economy is often described as an 'Anglo-Saxon economy'.
The British economy has in recent years seen the longest period of sustained economic growth for more than 150 years, and is one of the strongest European Union economies in terms of inflation, interest rates and unemployment, all of which remain relatively low. However, in common with the economies of other English-speaking countries, it has higher levels of income inequality and weaker social services and public service sectors compared to Europe's other large economies.
Agriculture is intensive, highly mechanised, and efficient by European standards, producing about 60% of food needs with less than 2% of the labour force.