Some people think that it is necessary to have a good command of a foreign language to get a good job. Do you agree with this?

Of course I agree. Nowadays it’s almost impossible to imagine any profession without global communication. You need a foreign language so as to contact your colleagues from different countries or to visit a conference. English has become the language of international trade. That’s why, you’ll be a good candidate for any job if you speak a foreign language.

 

№ 20     I.1.Read the article and say in 2—3 sentences what it is about.

ARE YOU READY TO BE INDEPENDENT?

Angela Rowlands recently tested her teenage children’s ability to do basic household jobs in the house. When Angela and her husband Ben went to Spain for a few weeks’ holiday on the Costa Brava, their son Mark, aged 18, and daughter Frances, aged 16, stayed at home to look after the house. The parents wanted to see how Mark and Frances would manage in the house on their own.

So when they left the house, they did not tell the children that they had prepared a few tests for them. “We took the plug¹ off the microwave and took out some good light bulbs² and put in light bulbs that did not work. We also made sure that there were other problems in the house: with an Italian coffee machine and one of the taps³ in the bathroom, ” says Dr Rowlands.

When Dr Rowlands returned from her holiday, she found, as she had expected, that her children had failed the independence test. Mark and Frances had asked an electrician to change the plug on the microwave and to change the light bulbs. They also paid a specialist for repairing the bathroom tap. When they saw that the coffee maker was broken, they went to buy a new one. They even did not think to look for the missing part in the cupboard.

Dr Rowlands was not surprised by the results of her experiment. “A lot of young people today are not able to solve simple problems in the house, ” she says. “They often throw things away when they are broken. This is wrong because it shows that young people do not understand how things work or are made. It can also be very expensive because you have to pay other people to do the work for you.”

But repairing broken things is only part of the problem. A lot of young people cannot cook at all. If there is no ready­made meal in the fridge, or if there is nothing to warm up in the microwave, then there is no food. This can cause health problems.

The truth is that many young people do not want to learn basic household skills as they find them boring. Though, if people want to be prepared for independent life they should learn how to do simple jobs about the house.

¹ a plug [plʌ ɡ ] штепсельная вилка

² a light bulb [ˈ laɪ t bʌ lb] лампочка

³ a tap [tæ p] кран

 

2. Why did Dr Rowlands decide to test her children? Read aloud the extract which says about it.

3. What did the parents prepare for their children?

4. Do you think the children passed the test? Why do you think so?

II. Listen to Tom speaking about his day off and answer the questions below.

1. How did Tom spend his day off?

2. What went wrong?

3. What made Tom feel frightened?

III. Let’s talk about Belarus. 1. Let’s talk about our country. What do you know about our country? The Republic of Belarus is situated in the centre of Europe in the extreme western part of the East-European Plain within the basins of the Dnieper, the Western Dvina and the Upper Neman. It borders on Poland, the Baltic states - Lithuania and Latvia, the Russian Federation and Ukraine. Belarus is situated at the crossroads of trade routes from west to east and from north to south.

Belarus occupies the territory of 207, 6 thousand square kilometres. It’s quite a compact country. It stretches for 560 kilometres from north to south and for 650 kilometres from west to east. Its population is about 10, 3 million people, 78% of whom are Belarusians.

Belarus is situated on a plain rising to hills, the highest of which is Dzierzhinsky Hill reaching 350 metres above the sea level. About twenty thousand rivers and streams run in all directions across the country. Seven of them are more than 500 kilometres long each. They are the Dnieper, the Neman, the Western Dvina, the Pripyat, the Berezina, the Sozh and the Vilia.

Belarus is a lake country. There are about 10, 800 lakes here. The lakes are particularly numerous in the north. The largest is Lake Naroch. Its surface stretches for 80 square kilometres. The lakes are noted for their great depth, transparent waters and beautiful scenery around them.

The real treasure of Belarus lies in its forests. National parks and reserves - Belovezhskaya Pushcha, Braslavsky and Narochansky National Parks, Berezinsky Reserve and others    - have been created to ensure the best protection for the rarest examples of Belarusian nature.

The flatland surface creates favourable conditions for agriculture, constructing industrial enterprises, as well as developing tourism and recreation services.

The climate of Belarus is moderate continental with mild and humid winters, warm summers and rainy days in autumn. The average temperature in January is minus 5-8 degrees Celsius ['selsias] and that in July is plus 20 °C. Even though Belarus is a land-locked country, its climate is strongly influenced by the Baltic Sea.

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