No doubt, beauty causes... and it can be proved by...
We shouldn’t forget that beauty can result in... as..
But in general, I associate beauty with... because...
So, to sum it up I can say that...
Exercise 3. Read the following article about beauty and single out the ideas touched upon in it.
What Is Beauty?
When you look in the mirror, do you like what you see? Chances are you’ve got a feature or two that could be improved – after all, nobody’s perfect. But how far would you go to be more attractive?
A recent survey found that it’s no longer just women who want to become more beautiful: men are quickly catching up. In Britain, for example, 34 per cent of men are not satisfied with their bodies.
And if creams and lotions can’t do the trick, both sexes are increasingly ready to submit to the surgeon’s knife in search of perfection.
The world record for plastic surgery is held by Cindy Jackson – who has had more than 20 operations to redesign herself from top to toe. She has spend 55,000 pounds over eight years to achieve the Barbie Doll look, and considers it money well spent. ‘’Now I can cross the street whenever I want to because male drivers will always stop to look at my figure.’’
Research shows that beautiful people get a better deal. Small babies prefer to look at them, teachers are kinder to them and even mothers pay more attention to their prettier children. At school attractive children are punished less and often get higher marks for the same work.
Every day we’re bombarded with beautiful faces. They smile at us from advertising hoardings, TV screens and magazines. Their perfect smiles, flawless cheekbones and wide eyes fuel the multi-billion-dollar beauty industry.
But what exactly is beauty? For centuries men – it usually was men – have tried to come up with a matemathical formula for beauty. The ancient Greeks the number three was the answer – a beautiful facewas one that could be divided into three exactly equal parts: hairline to eyebrows, eyebrows to mouth, and finally mouth to chin.
The Victorians believed that a face with great beauty possessed the average features of all other faces. However, this has now been debunked by recent research which found that the most attractive faces have higher cheekbones, a thinner jaw and lager eyes relative to the size of the facethan an average one.
Dr. Alfred Linney at University College Hospital measured the faces models and have found out that there’s no such thing as ‘’the’’ beautiful face. Instead the features of models turn out to be just as varied as everyone else’s. ‘’some have teeth that stick out,’’ he says, ‘’others have a jutting chin. There was no one ideal of beauty that was closer to others.’’ In fact, there were some features that could normally make them candidates for cosmetic surgery!’’
Another survey shows that all sorts of non-standard looks still count as beautiful. Just think of Angelica Houston or Gerard Depardieu.
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The truth is that when it comes to choosing a mate, beauty is still very much in the eyes of the beholder. Some of us make the oddest choices.
So the message is: if you’ve got it, flaunt it – but if you haven’t, just make the most of what you’ve got.
Exercise 4. Make sure you know how to pronounce and translate the given words correctly.
to improve attractive survey lotion
increasingly surgeon surgery to redesign
research flawless cheekbones equal
to possess to debunk to measure jutting
mate odd message to flaunt
cosmetic jaw model feature
Exercise 5. Look through the article, find the prepositions the following verbs were used with,
read out the sentences with them and translate them into Russian.
to catch... to be satisfied...
to submit...... search...
to be held... relative...
... top... toe to be bombarded...
to come...... to turn... to be
a candidate...
Exercise 6. Read the following sentences and fill them in with the appropriate words from
exercises 4, 5.
- Her eyes are her best...s.
- This young lady must be careful. She...s her jewelry in the street. I guess she can be robbed.
- He came back from his holiday with the greatly...d health.
- He’s an...-looking old man.
- It’s necessary to make a... to get to know public’s general opinion about something.
- She has been a faithful... for her husband and loved him a lot.
- I had to run to... her....
- The soldier saw a gun... out of the bush.
- She decided to buy a bottle of cleansing... for her face.
- As it has...ed..., there was no need to worry.
- Should a wife... her to her husband?
- The tailor...d me for a suit.
- He has carried out a... into the causes of cancer and his... has been successful.
- At the conference the speaker.......... difficult questions.
- The facts...... this problem need to be confirmed.
- I hope you can......... a better plan than this.
- Is she your... in beauty?
- He...es some distinguishing...s. I should say that his heavy... make his face square and a scar comes through the whole face.
Exercise 7. Find in the article the synonyms to the word ‘’beautiful’’. You can come up with
your own synonyms as well.
Exercise 8. Answer the following questions using the information from the article.
- Are people usually satisfied with their looks? Why?
- What are the results of recent surveys made upon the problem?
- Do you agree that beautiful people get a better deal? How can you prove it?
- What was beauty for the Ancient Greeks?
- What was counted as beautiful for the Victorians?
- What is beauty nowadays?
- What was done to feature out ‘’a beautiful face’’?
- How do you understand the following saying: ‘’Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder”? What idea is implied here?
- What’s the message of the story? Do you share it?
Exercise 9. Respond in writing to one of the following items.
- Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.
- In search of beauty? You are just at the beginning of an endless road.
- Everyone is equal in the attempts to find perfection.