8th grade TERM II

TASK 1

Read the extracts from a newspaper and match them with the sections in a newspaper.

A. Education

B. Sports

C. International News

D. Letters to the Editor

E. Arts

F. UK News

1. Park security

From Ms Susan Lasdun Sir, The money to be given by the National Lottery to restore our public parks is indeed cause for celebration. I agree with Marcus Binney that improving the security in parks is essential if we are to safeguard the lottery investment from future vandalism...

2. Many classical ballets on the 19th century were based on feeble texts and survived either because they contained brilliant choreography or music...

3. The universities are revolting. Today, the vice­chancellors will decide whether to charge new students an emergency levy, as a preliminary to making all students pay for higher education...

4. At the end of November, Simon Parke was on top of the world. He was the main attraction at a special press conference at Lamb’s Club in London. On one hand was England’s first world team squash trophy; on the other...

5. “We are taking counter measures”, a spokeswoman said darkly, admitting that the area, despite the installation of many extra security devices since the Fagan incident, was still not fox­proof. “We used to send them to London Zoo...”

6. An earthquake struck the town of Santa Maria in Peru early yesterday morning. The quake measured 7.5 on the Richter scale...

TASK 2

Read the text below. For statements choose T if the statement is true according to the text, and F if it is false.



British Newspapers

The British are great newspaper readers. Newspapers are often thought of as either ‘qualities’ or ‘populars’ which depends on differences in style and content. The ‘qualities’ are newspapers which are generally thought to give serious accounts of the news and reports on business matters, industry, culture and society. They are large­sized.

The ‘quality’ papers, like The Times, The Guardian and others, are directed at readers who want full information on a wide range of public matters and are prepared to spend a considerable amount of time reading it. They appreciate serious news presented seriously.

‘Qualities’, ‘Populars’, The Times, Daily Express, Financial Times, Daily Mail,

The Daily Telegraph, Daily Mirror, The Guardian, The Sun

‘Popular’ newspapers appeal to people wanting news of a more entertaining character, presented with lots of illustrations. They offer little amount of political news and explain political issues in easily understandable language.

Some newspapers come out only on Sundays. Many newspapers are printed in colour, and a number of papers produce colour magazines as part of the Saturday and Sunday paper. They provide reading material about fashion, clothes, cooking, diet, the house and home, motoring and holidays. They publish sections with articles on travel, food and wine, and other leisure topics.

1. The British don’t like reading newspapers. T/F

2. You can find serious news in the ‘quality’ papers. T/F

3. The Daily express is larger in size than The Guardian. T/F

4. The ‘popular’ papers have a lot of photographs. T/F5.1. The Times has more political news than The Daily Mirror. T/F

6. There is a great variety of articles on different topics. T/F

Task 3

Read the text. Choose the right answer (A, B or C).

From the History of Basketball

Basketball as a game appeared at the end of the nineteenth century. It (1) __ by James Naismith, a college coach during the winter of 1891–1892. He wanted (2) __ his students between the end of the football season and the beginning of the baseball season. He (3) __ fruit baskets on the walls at the opposite ends of the gymnasium and organized (4) __ teams who played with a ball used for football. Each team

tried to throw the ball into the other (5) __ basket and at the same time (6) __ to keep that team from throwing the ball into their basket. The students had a lot of exercise, they moved a lot about the gymnasium,

jumped and ran. They liked the game and called (7) __ basketball. Nowadays the game itself is the same but there are (8) __ changes in it. For example, now there (9) __ five players in a team. This game is very popular in Europe, where it (10) __ during World War I. It is interesting that at first basketball was an indoor game, and in America it (11) __ still indoors. But almost in all (12) __ countries it is an outdoor game.

1. A. introduce    B. was introduced      C. introduced

2. A. to train        B. training                  C. train

3. A. place           B. was placed           C. placed

4. A. nine­man     B. nine­men               C. nine­mens

5. A. team            B. teams                   C. team’s

6. A. tried             B. tryed                      C. tryd

7. A. it                  B. its                           C. itself

8. A. much           B. many                      C. no

9. A. is                 B. are                         C. were

10. A. brought      B. had brought            C. was brought

11. A. plays          B. is played                 C. play

12. A. other          B. another                    C. each

TASK 4

Read the first two paragraphs about a young swimmer.

Aiming for gold

Jamie is fourteen years old. He is a champion swimmer in his age and his coach believes that one day he could win an Olympic medal. This is Jamie’s dream.

It’s not going to be easy to make that dream come true, however, and Jamie already has a tough weekly routine. He puts in two solid hours of training before school and in the evenings, he is back in the pool or the weights room. Then there are weekend sessions as well when he also has his homework.

Find phrases in the text that have a similar meaning to one of the multiple­choice answers below. Then choose the best answer (A, B, C or D).

13. Jamie has __ .

A. won a lot of swimming races;

B. won competitions against people older than him;

C. not taken part in competitions yet;

D. won competitions against people the same age as him.

14. Jamie __ .

A. can relax at the weekend;

B. is very busy seven days a week;

C. does swimming as his only form of training;

D. gets less schoolwork than other boys of his age.