Орлова Г.Д. и др. Английский для бакалавров. Часть II
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against attack, so the monks began to build bridges at such places. Gradually, during
the Middle Ages, they taught others how to build.
The new medieval bridges were not as grand as the Roman bridges. Early ones
were of the wooden-beam type, built on stone piers or wooden piles. War and
religion both had their effect on most medieval bridges. Chapels were often built
close to bridges, fortresslike towers guarded the bridges' approaches, and the roadway
was narrowed at strategic points to make defense easier.
By the twelfth century, some people were once again beginning to experiment
with different kinds of bridge building, and in London an ambitious builder named
Peter Colechurch was planning one of the most famous of all bridges - Old London
Bridge.
Timber bridges spanning the Thames River at London had been
alternately constructed and destroyed ever since the tenth century, when
Norsemen .sailed up the Thames, fastened their lines to a bridge’s piling, then
rowed downstream and pulled the bridge down.
Toward the end of the twelfth century, however, such invasions were no longer
a threat, and London was becoming an increasingly important city. When Colechurch
put forward his plans for a masonry arch bridge, it was exactly what the Londoners
wanted. A fund drive was an immediate success, with subscriptions pouring in from
rich and poor alike. Building began in 1176, and the bridge was finished thirty-four
years later.
The old nursery rhyme says:
London Bridge is falling down,
Falling down,
Falling down...
Amazingly, it didn't! London Bridge was crude and clumsy looking — just over
936 feet long, with 19 pointed arches that varied in width from 15 feet to 34 feet, 5
inches. Not one of the piers matched any other, and all were more than half as wide
as the arches that sprang from them.
This meant that the openings through which the waters of the tidal river rushed
were relatively small. Water funneled through them with great velocity, making the
passage of boats about as chancy as shooting the rapids in a mountain stream. In fact,
maneuvering a boat through one of these arches was called “shooting the bridge” and
a popular saying was “London Bridge is made for wise men to go over and fools to
go under.”
Almost every kind of structure one can think of was built on London Bridge.
There were gateways at each end and a chapel on the central pier. Houses were
added, built on supports over the piers; there were a hundred of them, including
buildings that straddled the roadway. In most of the buildings, merchants had shops
on the roadway level and lived in the upper floors.
The seventh span from the south bank was a drawbridge. Upon the drawbridge
pier, which was one of the larger piers, Nonesuch House was erected. It was called
Nonesuch because nothing like it had been seen before. This four-story house was
brought in pieces from Holland and then fastened together with wooden pegs. During
the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. it became one of the most fashionable addresses in
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London.
The south gateway of the bridge was strongly fortified, and when traitors were
beheaded, their heads were displayed on the battlements of this gateway. It soon
gained the popular name of Traitor’s Gate.
For most of its six hundred years, London Bridge was the only bridge across the
Thames. Its construction and upkeep were paid for by rents and tolls, and in time
these amounted to a great deal of money. Tolls were even collected for “shooting the
bridge,” which must have specially angered the boatmen who wished the structure
had never been built in the first place.
By the seventeenth century, Old London Bridge was no longer a fashionable
address. Many of the houses had fallen into disrepair, and in 1831 when construction
began on New London Bridge, Old London Bridge was taken down. By that time
several other bridges had been built at London.
Scott Corbett
From "Cricket"
I. Read the text ‘London Bridge’. Say which of the facts seems to you the most
striking.
II. Find in the text the conditional sentence. Analyze and translate it.
III. Translate the text.
Text 11. WHY DOES FROZEN FOOD KEEP WELL?
Frozen food keeps for a long time because the freezing of the water inside the
food forces the bacteria, which cause it to decompose, into inactivity. Like all living
things, bacteria need water in order to thrive.
Bacteria are microscopic organisms, or forms of life which occur in air, water
and soil all over the world. But they flourish and multiply particularly wherever
organic matter is present. Some may cause disease, others are harmless, or even
beneficial, but their activity causes organic matter, including food, to decompose.
Modern discoveries have enabled sub-zero temperatures to be obtained by
cooling air to about -300°C (-508°F) by compressing it and passing it into low
pressure chambers through fine nozzles. The result is a sudden and violent expansion,
causing the air to be drastically cooled. In home refrigerators Freon-12 gas is used
instead of air, and the temperatures are much less drastic. The temperature in the
freezing compartment of a domestic refrigerator is about -4°C or 25°F, and that of a
deep-freezer about -15°C or 5°F.
Preserving food has an ancient history. The salting and smoking of fish and meat
have been carried out for centuries. Another long-used method of preserving food is
to change its form, for example turning milk into butter and cheese, and grapes into
wine. More recently preservation has been effected by canning, heat being used to
kill bacteria, or dehydration.
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Most fresh food contains 75 to 90 per cent of water. When this liquid is
removed, great savings in packaging, storage and transport are made. Potatoes, milk,
eggs, tea and coffee are among the well-known products now sold as dry powders
that need only the addition of water to reconstitute them.
I. Read the text and answer the questions:
1. Why does frozen food keep for a long time?
2. What are bacteria?
3. What conditions are beneficial for bacteria?
4. What methods for preserving food are listed in the text?
II. Write the summary of the text in Russian.
III. Translate the summary you’ve made into English.
Text 12. YOU CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT IT
It's in our bodies. It's in living things around us. It's used in .some church
services and in social customs. We have superstitions and sayings about it. It has
thousands of uses in the world today. One of these is to flavor the egg you have for
breakfast. Can you guess what it is? Common table salt.
Salt is necessary for the life and health of people, plants and animals. Blood,
sweat and tears are all salty. Body cells must have just the right amount of salt to
function properly. Too much salt can be dangerous for your heart and blood vessels.
But if you work or play hard enough to perspire heavily, you must replace the salt
lost from your system or you could suffer from heat exhaustion. Wild animals replace
the salt in their systems by licking natural salt deposits. To keep domestic animals
healthy, farmers put out salt blocks for their livestock to lick.
Salt is made up of two elements, sodium and chlorine, its chemical name is
“sodium chloride.” Ordinarily these two work together in proper balance in the body.
However, if something disturbs this balance, the sodium can collect in large amounts
and attract and hold water in the tissues.
This can cause swelling in parts of the body, kidney trouble, and high blood
pressure. To help correct these problems, the diet must be changed so that the salt
needs of the body are still taken care of, but extra amounts of salt cannot collect and
cause trouble. Such special diets must be prescribed by a doctor.
Today we take salt for granted, but many years ago salt was scarce, it was used
as money. African traders exchanged it for twice its weight in gold. The soldiers in
Julius Caesar's army received common salt, called salarium, as part of their pay.
From this came the word “salary.” In Great Britain four or five hundred years ago, at
the great feasts of the ruling families, the saler, or salt container, was placed in the
middle of the long dining tables. Those who were seated above the saler, closest to
the host, were the honored guests. Those who sat below the saler were the common
people. Our name for a salt container, “salt cellar,” comes from the word “saler.”
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From the earliest times, salt has been a symbol of lasting friendship and honor.
When the Arabs say, “There is salt between us,” they mean, “We have eaten together
and are friends.” Hebrews have a custom of taking bread and salt to the home of a
friend. By this they mean. "May you always have everything you need — and some
added flavor as well." As part of a religious ceremony, the Hebrews also used to rub
salt on newborn babies to insure their good health. Catholics use salt as a symbol of
purity in their baptismal service and for the preparation of holy water.
When salt was scarce, it was considered bad luck to spill any of it. Many
people still believe this. To prevent bad luck, they say, you must take a pinch
of the spilled salt between the thumb and first finger of your right hand and throw it
over your left shoulder.
Have you ever heard someone say, “That man isn’t worth his salt”? This means
he hasn't earned his salary. If they say, “She's the salt of the earth,” they mean she's
the finest kind of person. When someone tells you a story that you know is only
partly true, you "take it with a grain of salt." This means you will have to look hard to
find the tiny part of the story that is true. If you “salt something away,” you are
storing it or putting it away for future use.
Today, almost 40,000,000 tons of salt are produced in the United States alone,
taken from mines, wells, and the sea. Some salt deposits are thousands of feet thick
and have been mined for hundreds of years. In Poland, 900 feet underground, miners
have cut out whole rooms and have carved statues and alters cut of pure salt crystals.
In another old mine in Colombia, 345 feet down, there is an excavation large enough
to hold 10,000 people.
Only a small amount of all the salt produced seasons - our food. The rest of it is
used in other ways - to preserve food, to cool refrigerated railroad cars, to cure animal
hides, to melt winter snow and ice. Chemical compounds made from table salt are
also used in manufacturing things like glass, soap, paper, and rayon, in heat-treating,
smelting, and refining metals, and in water-softening. Common table salt is necessary
in many ways we take for granted — our very lives depend upon it.
Margaret Gramatky
From "Cricket"
American English
I. Read the text ‘You Can’t Live without It’. Note both the order in which the
ideas come in the text and the important details.
II. Read the text again and find the answers to the questions below.
1. What are extra amounts of salt dangerous for?
2. Why must you replace the salt lost from your system?
3. What do farmers do to keep domestic animals healthy?
4. What elements does salt consist of?
5. Many years ago salt was used as money, wasn’t it?
6. What idiomatic expressions with the word ‘salt’ are given in the text?
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7. What do they mean?
8. What was salt a symbol of?
9. What ways is salt used in?
III. Write the summary of the text in English.
Text 13. CANNED FOOD
One of the first men to make a commercial success of food conservation was
Henry John Heinz. He started by bottling horse-radish, and he was so successful that
in 1869 he founded a company in Pittsburgh, USA. Like other Americans of his
generation, Heinz made his name a household word throughout the western world. At
last, man seems to have discovered how to preserve food without considerably
altering its taste. The tins оf food (Heinz tins!) which Captain Scott abandoned in the
Antarctic were opened 47 years after his death, and the contents were not only edible,
but pleasant.
The main argument against conserved foods is not that the canning of food
makes it taste different; rather, people complain that the recipes which the canning
chefs dream up are tedious or tasteless. But any recipe is tedious or tasteless when it
is eaten in great quantities. And a company like Heinz can only produce something if
it is going to be eaten in great quantities. The tomato is very pleasant to eat when it is
freshly picked. A regular diet of tomatoes alone could well prove tedious. The
canning companies try to cook the tomato in as many ways as possible. The Heinz
factories in Britain use millions and millions of tomatoes every year. They claim that
if all the tomatoes were loaded on to 15-ton lorries, the line of lorries would stretch
for 60 miles.
But there are many people who do not like to eat food out of season. They like
their food to be fresh, and they like to cook it themselves in “the old-fashioned way”.
But it is very difficult for modern man to realise what it is like to live without the
advantage of pre-packaged and canned food. European society in its present form
could not cope without modern methods of food processing. Imagine your local
supermarket without all the cans of prepackaged foods. Тhere wouldn’t be much
variety left, and what was left would have to be increased enormously in order to give
the same amount of food. The supermarket would turn into a chaos of rotting
vegetables, stale bread and unhealthy meat. The health problems would be
insurmountable, unless we all went back into the country to support ourselves.
So next time you reject canned food as being tasteless or unimaginative,
remember that you can only afford to eat fresh food because canned food exists.
I. Read the text and decide whether the arguments contained in the italicized
sentences are for or against food canning.
II. Translate the text.
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Text 14. THE BEATLES
The Beatles became nationally famous in England in October 1962, when their
first single record, “Love Me Do”, entered the Hit Parade at number 27. The famous
four who recorded that song were, of course, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George
Harrison and drummer Ringo Starr. This was the original line-up of the band.
Three years before, when John Lennon was 19 and George Harrison
approaching his seventeenth birthday, the group was offered its first “big job” -
playing at the famous Star Club in Hamburg. In those days there were five Beatles:
Pete Best on drums, Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and the mysterious fifth Beatle,
Stuart Sutcliffe.
The Beatles returned to England penniless and exhausted. Stuart Sutcliffe left
the group and stayed in Germany, where he died a few months later. The Beatles
began a series of lunchtime concerts at Liverpool’s Cavern Club. They were now
playing better than ever.
The lunchtime concerts were a great success. The road outside the club was
always crowded with girls who worked in nearby shops and offices. They came to see
the Beatles during their lunch-break. Local shopkeepers often complained about the
crowds and the noise. The man who ran the local record shop went to see what all the
fuss was about. His name was Brian Epstein, the man who became the Beatles
manager.
The first thing that Epstein did as manager was to sack Pete Best. There are
many different stories about why this happened. Probably it was because there was a
serious clash of personalities between Lennon and Best. Lennon said: “He goes, or I
go.” In Best’s place came Richard Starkey (Ringo Starr), the drummer they met in
Hamburg.
The job of producing the Beatles records went to George Martin, an extremely
nice and remarkably old-fashioned man who worked at the EMI studios in Abbey
Road, North London. George Martin became the brains behind the recording
successes of the Beatles (although John Lennon never agreed with that).
Martin had some unusual and immensely successful ideas. He persuaded the
group to have instruments on some of their songs that they didn’t want to begin with:
the cello on “Yesterday”, the violins on “Eleanor Rigby”, the oboe on “You’ve Got
To Hide Your Love Away”.
During the sixties, it seemed that the Beatles were always in the news headlines.
They made successful records and interesting films. Lennon caused anti-Beatle
demonstrations in America by saying that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus
Christ. Beatlemania was the word used to describe the reaction of fans all over the
world.
When Epstein died in 1967, things began to go wrong for the Beatles' industry.
The relationship between Lennon and McCartney became very difficult; they
disagreed about music, they disliked each other's wife, and they disagreed about who
should be the new manager of their affairs.
Eventually, an American called Allen Klein bought a controlling interest in the
group. This was the beginning of the end, as McCartney couldn’t stand Klein.
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During the seventies, the Beatles went off in their different directions, Lennon
became a solo performer and then property speculator in New York, buying and
selling expensive apartments. McCartney formed a middle-of-the-road pop group
called “Wings” with his wife, Linda. George Harrison was rarely seen, but spent time
raising money for charity. Ringo Starr began a surprisingly successful career as a film
star. John Lennon was murdered in New York in December 1980.
In October 1982, 20 years after “Love Me Do” entered the British Hit Parade, a
Beatles song was again in the Top Ten. The song was... “Love Me Do”.
Ken WILSON
From “Modern English International”
I. Read the text ‘The Beatles’. Find the key sentence in each paragraph of the
text.
II. Suggest a headline to each paragraph.
III. Make up the plan of the text ‘The Beatles’. Retell the text according to your
plan.
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Text 15. ROCK’N’ROLL & BEATLEMANIA
All four Beatles were born during 1940’s and grew up in the seaport of
Liverpool, the city on the banks of the River Mersey.
In the post-war years in Britain, many teenagers of the 1950’s were influenced
by events taking place across the Atlantic, in America. Film stars and fashions were
copied and the youngsters wanted something different from their parents, they sought
out their own kinds of music and style - they discovered rock’n’roll! In 1957 the
emergence of a young truck driver named Elvis Presley had its effect here in England
with release of his record “Heartbreak Hotel”.
‘NEMS’ was one of the busiest record shops in the centre of Liverpool, owned
by Brian Epstein. A very successful businessman, Brian always liked to please his
customers and because of numerous requests about the Beatles he decided to find out
for himself more about the band.
Brian visited the Cavern one lunch-time when the Beatles were playing and
although he was only 27 years old he felt very out of place in his smart suit, shirt and
tie.
However, he was struck by the charisma and music of the Beatles and asked
them to visit him in his office.
Brian told the group he would like to become their manager, but he did point out
that some things would have to change, especially their scruffy image - this they
agreed to, provided they didn’t have to change their music.
‘The Beatles’ began playing together in 1959 appearing in German and English
clubs until a string of hits in 1962/63 made them Britain’s top new band.
The music scene of the early 1960s was very different from the present day.
With the music charts being dominated on both sides of the Atlantic mainly by
American artists, it was quite unusual for a British star to enter the charts. But things
were soon to change, word was spreading about four young men from Liverpool, who
were taking England by storm. What followed is usually called ‘Beatlemania’. The
group couldn't appear in public without police protection. They had conquered the
world but not seen it, prisoners in hotel rooms.
One of their records had been promoted in the USA and the American DJs had
been plugging this ‘new British sound’, so when the Beatles arrived at Kennedy
Airport USA for the first time in February 1964 the welcome was beyond their
wildest dreams; 5,000 screaming fans were heard above the screeching of jet engines.
They appeared on the Ed Sullivan show in front of 75,000,000 people, coast to
coast. One of the songs they sang was “I want to Hold Your Hand”; this was their
first American No.1 hit.
John, Paul, George and Ringo became more than just pop stars - they became
the voice of a new generation. Managed by Brian Epstein and produced by George
Martin, they had hit after hit on both sides of the Atlantic. They made interesting and
original films, too - for example ‘Help’ and ‘A Hard Day’s Night’.
In April 1968 they formed 'The Apple Corporation'. They opened new offices in
Savile Row the following June. Apple was going to have many divisions - films,
music, electronics and even a clothes boutique. It was the dream of the Beatles to
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give others opportunities they themselves had been denied when starting in business
in the very beginning.
By 1970 though, mixture of drugs, arguments and money problems brought the
band’s career - and the ‘swinging sixties’- to an end.
I. Read the text ‘Rock’N’Roll & Beatlemania’ and say what facts are new
and exciting.
II. Read the text again to find the answers to the questions below.
1. The idol of early 60’s was a young truck driver. What’s his name? What
was he?
2. Why did he influence the youngsters of England?
3. What was ‘NEMS’?
4. Who was the first manager of the Beatles? How did they get acquainted?
5. What does ‘Beatlemania’ mean?
6. How did Americans welcome the Beatles in February, 1964? Why?
7. What other activities did the Beatles organize and take part in? Why did
they do that?
8. What were the reasons for the band’s career end?
III. Compare the texts – ‘The Beatles’ and ‘Rock’n’Roll & Beatlemania’.
Outline the similarities you can find between the two texts.
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K E Y S
Unit 2
Text B
Answers to Task II:
A. “b” answers are correct
B. 1 – c
2 – a
3 – b
4 – a
5 – a
C. 1 – c
2 – d
3 – e
4 – f
5 – b
6 – a
D.
1 – F
2 – T
3 – F
4 – T
5 – T
6 – F
7 - T
E. 1. mouse
2. file
3. scanner
4. upgrade
5. keyboard
6. disk
7. modem
8. flame
9. boot (MICROSOFT)
F. (1) PC
(2) information
(3) web
(4) e – mail
(5) on – screen
(6) chat
(7) video
(8) generation
(9) interactive
Answers to the Quiz “Moscow, the Heart of Russia”
1 – c 6 – a
2 – a 7 – c In 1770 Catherine II denied the request
3 – b 8 – a 540 m high
4 – c 9 – (1) a In 1863, 3.6 km long
(2) b
(3) c the largest and the most beautiful
5 – (1) b
(2) c
(3) a
10 – (1) a
(2) a
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