Nenets Culture affected by Global Warming
Вариант 5
Аудирование
Чтение
| Установите соответствие между заголовками 1–8 и текстами A–G. Занесите свои ответы в таблицу. Используйте каждую цифру только один раз. В задании один заголовок лишний.
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| 1.
| Reaching a target audience
| | 2.
| Let the air in
| | 3.
| Using modern technology
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| Violating regulations
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| | 5.
| Careless behaviour
| | 6.
| Original meaning
| | 7.
| Needs protection
| | 8.
| Use of a dead language
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| | A.
| Distance education or e-learning offers several advantages. Students participating in e-learning programs are often able to set their own schedules and work at their own pace. The learning experience can be supported by multimedia such as videos, interactive websites, and real-time conferencing with experts from anywhere in the world. Additionally, e-learning programs are less expensive than traditional ones.
| | B.
| Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm did not expect to create a children's collection of fairy tales. Instead, they wanted to preserve Germany's oral tradition by collecting different stories. Not until several editions of their collection were published did the brothers realize that children were to be a major audience. Once the Brothers Grimm saw this new public, they tried to refine and soften their tales, which had originated centuries earlier as folklore.
| | C.
| The five Potter books have sold 250 million copies worldwide in 55 languages, including Latin and Ancient Greek. In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J.K. Rowlings uses spells and charms that are largely based on Latin. But one of the most serious spells, Avada Kedavra, may be a variant of "abracadabra". In the Harry Potter series, it is a spell that causes death. Harry Potter is the only one known to have survived it.
| | D.
| Critics of the Harry Potter books point out that the main characters who are supposed to be “good” are consistently and regularly portrayed as breaking all manner of ethical rules like those against lying, cheating, and stealing. They also regularly break school rules against behavior like going out at night, using magic in the Muggle world, and so forth.
| | E.
| On Christmas Eve of 1968, NASA astronaut William Anders, while orbiting the moon with the Apollo 8 mission, took a photograph that provided a foundation for the modern green movement. His photo shows a small, blue planet Earth peeking over the horizon of the Moon. The image of a small planet, alone in a vast ocean of space, showed billions of people the fragility of our planet and the importance of preserving and protecting Earth.
| | F.
| There are many indoor air pollutants that can be harmful. Indoor air can be up to 100 times more polluted than outdoor air. Organic compounds from some paints, carpets, synthetic fabrics and adhesives are a known health hazard, contributing to the disease known as Sick Building Syndrome. Proper technology can help – open windows to let fresh air in and bad air out.
| | G.
| Some people, especially in rural areas, burn their trash in pits or barrels. It seems an easy way to get rid of your garbage, but the smoke it creates has a lot of really unhealthy toxic chemicals. Burning things like foam cups, plastics, and colored and bleached paper in backyards or even fireplaces causes toxic smoke that can spread throughout the neighborhood.
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| Прочитайте текст и выполните задания 1 – 7, выбирая букву A, B, C или D. Установите соответствие номера задания выбранному вами варианту ответа.
The introduction to a new biography of Gannibal by the author
Alexander Pushkin was not only Russia’s greatest poet, but he was also the great-grandson of an African slave. The slave, whose godfather was Peter the Great, claimed to have royal blood of his own. Certainly his Russian descendants believed that he was an African prince. His descendants have included members as well as close friends of the English royal family. So the legend goes on.
Pushkin told the story of his black ancestor in “The Negro of Peter the Great”, but this biography tells a different version. The main difference is between fact and fiction. The Russian poet hoped to discover a biographical truth by sticking to the facts, only to discover that facts are slippery and not always true. His biography turned into a novel. Even then, it was left unfinished after six and a half chapters. The scrawled manuscript comes to an end with a line of dialogue – ‘Sit down, you scoundrel, let’s talk!’ — and a line of dots. Pushkin could be speaking to himself. In any case, it’s now time to stand up and carry on with the story. I have tried to join up the dots.
This is a book, then, about a missing link between the storyteller and his subject, an African prince; between the various branches of a family and its roots; between Pushkin and Africa; Africa and Europe; Europe and Russia; black and white. It is the story of a remarkable life and it poses the question: how is such a life to be explained?
My own explanation began in 2001, while I was living in Russia and working there as a journalist. The first draft was written during the war in Afghanistan, on the road to Kabul, but it describes my journey to the frontline of a different kind of war in Africa between the armies of Ethiopia and Eritrea. According to legend, Pushkin’s ancestor was born there, on the northern bank of the River Mareb, where I was arrested for taking photographs and compass readings, on suspicion of being a spy. Understandably my captors didn’t believe that I was only a journalist researching the life of Russia’s greatest writer. At the military camp, where I was held for a number of hours, the commandant looked me up and down when I asked, in my best posh English accent, ‘I say, my good man, can you tell me, basically, what is going on here?’ ‘Basically,’ he replied, with distaste, ‘you are in prison!’ The incident taught me something. Journalists, like biographers, are meant to respect facts, and by retracing Gannibal’s footsteps, I hoped to find a true story.
Some of those journeys lie behind the book, and are used whenever it is helpful to show that the past often retains a physical presence for the biographer – in landscapes, buildings, portraits, and above all in the trace of handwriting on original letters or journals. But my own journeys are not the point of the book. It is Gannibal’s story. I am only following him.
Descriptions of Africa and the slave trade result from my journeys, but this is not a book about a ‘stolen legacy’, nor certainly about the intellectual wars that have been part of black history in recent years. Biographers, like novelists, should tell stories. I have tried to do this. I should, however, point out from the outset that Gannibal was not the only black face to be seen in the centre of fashionable St Petersburg at that time. Negro slaves were a common sight in the grand salons of Millionaires’ Street and they appeared in a variety of roles, such as pets, pages, footmen, mascots, mistresses, favourites and adopted children. At the Winter Palace, so-called court Arabs, usually Ethiopians dressed in turbans and baggy trousers stood guard like stage extras in the marble wings.
1. The slave’s Russian descendants believe that the slave
A) had Russian royal blood in him.
B) was Peter the Great’s godfather.
C) belonged to the royal family in his native land.
D) was a close friend of the English royal family.
2. According to the narrator, the biography of Pushkin’s ancestor turned into a
novel because Pushkin
A) didn’t like the true biographical facts he had discovered.
B) found it impossible to stick to the facts that were doubtful.
C) could not do without describing fictional events.
D) found the true facts of the slave’s biography uninspiring.
3. The narrator’s objective in writing the book was to
A) write a new version of the novel “The Negro of Peter the Great”.
B) continue the story from where it was left unfinished.
C) interpret’s attitude to his ancestor.
D) prove that Pushkin’s ancestor was an African prince.
4. The narrator says that his research for the book
A) brought him to Russia to work as a journalist.
B) made him go to the war in Afghanistan.
C) led him to take part in the war in Africa.
D) brought him to a river bank in Africa.
5. The lesson that the narrator learnt from his arrest was
A) not to use a camera and compass at the frontline.
B) to avoid speaking to people in his best posh English accent.
C) not to distort information about real events.
D) never to tell people about his research.
6. The narrator thinks that his journeys
A) helped him find some visible traces of the past.
B) made him to feel sympathy to a “stolen legacy”.
C) deepened his understanding of the concept of intellectual wars.
D) turned out to be the main contents of his book.
7. The narrator points out that at the time of Gannibal
A) negro slaves played a variety of roles in the theatre.
B) black slaves were like stage extras in royal processions.
C) many Africans made a brilliant career at the court.
D) Africans were not a novelty in the capital of Russia.
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| Прочитайте текст и заполните пропуски A–F частями предложений, обозначенными цифрами 1–7. Одна из частей в списке 1–7 лишняя. Занесите цифру, обозначающую соответствующую часть предложения, в таблицу.
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Nenets Culture affected by Global Warming
For 1,000 years the indigenous Nenets people have migrated along the 450-mile-long Yamal peninsula in northern Russia. In summer they wander northwards, taking their reindeer with them. In winter they return southwards.
But this remote region of north-west Siberia is now being affected by global warming. Traditionally the Nenets travel across the frozen River Ob in November A __________ around Nadym. These days, though, this annual winter migration is delayed. Last year the Nenets, together with many thousands of reindeer, had to wait until late December B __________.
“Our reindeer were hungry. There wasn’t enough food,” Jakov Japtik, a Nenets reindeer herder, said. “The snow is melting sooner, quicker and faster than before. In spring it’s difficult for the reindeer to pull the sledges. They get tired,” Japtik said.
Herders say that the peninsula’s weather is increasingly unpredictable – with unseasonal snowstorms C __________, and milder longer autumns. In winter, temperatures used to go down to -50°C. Now they are normally around -30°C, according to Japtik. “Obviously we prefer -30°C. But the changes aren’t good for the reindeer D __________,” he said, setting off on his sledge to round up his reindeer herd.
Here, in one of the most remote parts of the planet, there are clear signs E __________. Last year the Nenets arrived at a regular summer camping spot and discovered that half of their lake had disappeared. The water had drained away after a landslide. The Nenets report other curious changes – there are fewer mosquitoes and a strange increase in flies. Scientists say there is unmistakable evidence F __________.
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