Cat CDZ

Read the text and mark the sentences True/False/Not Stated. Marathons Many Americans enjoy running marathons – a forty-two kilometer race. More than three hundred marathons were held in the United States last year and that number is expected to grow. The New York City marathon is held every year on the first Sunday of November. It is a big sporting event with thousands of participants. One can see celebrities and famous sportsmen among the marathon runners. A famous cyclist, whose excellent physical condition helped him complete the marathon in less than three hours, admitted that the race was ‘the hardest physical thing he had ever done’. While the New York City marathon is the biggest, the Boston Marathon is the oldest one. Boston’s is held in April. Boston is famous for the fact that Roberta Gibb became the first woman to unofficially run that marathon in 1966. At that time, people did not believe women could run marathons. The Olympics did not hold a women’s marathon event until 1984 in Los Angeles, California. Today’s marathons welcome everyone. The popularity of the sport has spread among people who are interested in health and fitness. Many middle-aged people like to spend a weekend visiting a new city and running a marathon there. Some magazines call the middle-aged people of today the ‘marathon generation’. Forty-three percent of marathon runners in the United States are 40 years old or older. There are many organisations for marathoners. Nowadays many local running clubs offer training programmes that can prepare runners for the big race. A marathon really starts several months before the race. You need to run about five days every week to prepare. Most runs should be for half an hour. You should also try to run for an hour or more each Sunday. This is a very basic way for an average runner to prepare. What you can’t prepare for is running in a big marathon with thousands of other participants. A marathon is in many ways a social event. There is a sense of community. The spectators are as much a part of the race as the runners. Almost every age group is present. At the start of the race there is a lot of shouting as the runners want to release some tension. They have three to five hours of hard running ahead of them. However, there are people who want to run farther. For them ultra-marathons are organised that take running to a different level. An ultra-marathon is any race longer than a marathon. One of the oldest ultra-marathons is held annually in California, USA. It is 160 kilometers long. Last year, 210 people finished the race. The winner, Graham Cooper, finished in eighteen hours and seventeen minutes. 3. In the 20th century doctors believed that marathons were harmful for women.

Read the text and mark the sentences True/False/Not Stated. Marathons Many Americans enjoy running marathons – a forty-two kilometer race. More than three hundred marathons were held in the United States last year and that number is expected to grow. The New York City marathon is held every year on the first Sunday of November. It is a big sporting event with thousands of participants. One can see celebrities and famous sportsmen among the marathon runners. A famous cyclist, whose excellent physical condition helped him complete the marathon in less than three hours, admitted that the race was ‘the hardest physical thing he had ever done’. While the New York City marathon is the biggest, the Boston Marathon is the oldest one. Boston’s is held in April. Boston is famous for the fact that Roberta Gibb became the first woman to unofficially run that marathon in 1966. At that time, people did not believe women could run marathons. The Olympics did not hold a women’s marathon event until 1984 in Los Angeles, California. Today’s marathons welcome everyone. The popularity of the sport has spread among people who are interested in health and fitness. Many middle-aged people like to spend a weekend visiting a new city and running a marathon there. Some magazines call the middle-aged people of today the ‘marathon generation’. Forty-three percent of marathon runners in the United States are 40 years old or older. There are many organisations for marathoners. Nowadays many local running clubs offer training programmes that can prepare runners for the big race. A marathon really starts several months before the race. You need to run about five days every week to prepare. Most runs should be for half an hour. You should also try to run for an hour or more each Sunday. This is a very basic way for an average runner to prepare. What you can’t prepare for is running in a big marathon with thousands of other participants. A marathon is in many ways a social event. There is a sense of community. The spectators are as much a part of the race as the runners. Almost every age group is present. At the start of the race there is a lot of shouting as the runners want to release some tension. They have three to five hours of hard running ahead of them. However, there are people who want to run farther. For them ultra-marathons are organised that take running to a different level. An ultra-marathon is any race longer than a marathon. One of the oldest ultra-marathons is held annually in California, USA. It is 160 kilometers long. Last year, 210 people finished the race. The winner, Graham Cooper, finished in eighteen hours and seventeen minutes. 5. The best way to prepare for a marathon is to join a running club.

Read the text and mark the sentences True/False/Not Stated. Marathons Many Americans enjoy running marathons – a forty-two kilometer race. More than three hundred marathons were held in the United States last year and that number is expected to grow. The New York City marathon is held every year on the first Sunday of November. It is a big sporting event with thousands of participants. One can see celebrities and famous sportsmen among the marathon runners. A famous cyclist, whose excellent physical condition helped him complete the marathon in less than three hours, admitted that the race was ‘the hardest physical thing he had ever done’. While the New York City marathon is the biggest, the Boston Marathon is the oldest one. Boston’s is held in April. Boston is famous for the fact that Roberta Gibb became the first woman to unofficially run that marathon in 1966. At that time, people did not believe women could run marathons. The Olympics did not hold a women’s marathon event until 1984 in Los Angeles, California. Today’s marathons welcome everyone. The popularity of the sport has spread among people who are interested in health and fitness. Many middle-aged people like to spend a weekend visiting a new city and running a marathon there. Some magazines call the middle-aged people of today the ‘marathon generation’. Forty-three percent of marathon runners in the United States are 40 years old or older. There are many organisations for marathoners. Nowadays many local running clubs offer training programmes that can prepare runners for the big race. A marathon really starts several months before the race. You need to run about five days every week to prepare. Most runs should be for half an hour. You should also try to run for an hour or more each Sunday. This is a very basic way for an average runner to prepare. What you can’t prepare for is running in a big marathon with thousands of other participants. A marathon is in many ways a social event. There is a sense of community. The spectators are as much a part of the race as the runners. Almost every age group is present. At the start of the race there is a lot of shouting as the runners want to release some tension. They have three to five hours of hard running ahead of them. However, there are people who want to run farther. For them ultra-marathons are organised that take running to a different level. An ultra-marathon is any race longer than a marathon. One of the oldest ultra-marathons is held annually in California, USA. It is 160 kilometers long. Last year, 210 people finished the race. The winner, Graham Cooper, finished in eighteen hours and seventeen minutes. 1. The well-trained athlete finds a marathon a difficult activity.

Match the titles with the paragraphs

Read the text and complete the sentences Lily and I had planned a movie marathon weekend. I was exhausted from work and she was stressed out from her classes, so we'd promised to spend the whole weekend parked on the couch and subsist solely on pizza and crisps. No healthy food. No diet Coke. And absolutely no strict, official clothes. Even though we talked all the time, we hadn't spent any real time together since I'd moved to the city. We'd been friends since the eighth grade, when I first saw Lily crying alone at a cafeteria table. She'd just moved in with her grandfather and started at our school in Avon, after it became clear that her parents weren't coming home any time soon. The day I found her crying alone in the cafeteria was the day her grandmother had forced her to chop off her dirty dreadlocks and wear a dress, and Lily was not very happy about it. Something about the way she talked, the way she said, «That's so nice of you,» and «Let's just forget about it», charmed me, and we immediately became friends. We'd been inseparable through the rest of high school, and lived in the same room for all years at Brown College. Lily hadn't yet decided whether she preferred girlish dresses or rough leather jackets, but we complemented each other well. And I missed her. Because with her first year as a graduate student and my exhausting work, we hadn't seen a whole lot of each other lately. Lily was studying for Ph.D. in Russian Literature at Columbia University and working odd jobs every free second she wasn’t studying. Her grandmother barely had enough money to support herself, and Lily had to pay for the studies on her own. However, she seemed to be fond of such a way of life. She loved Russian culture ever since her eighth-grade teacher told her that Lily looked how he had always pictured Lolita, with her round face and curly black hair. She went directly home and read Nabokov’s “Lolita”, and then read everything else Nabokov wrote. And Tolstoy. And Gogol. And Chekhov. By the time we finished school, she was applying to Brown College to work with a specific professor who had a degree in Russian Literature. On interviewing a seventeen-year-old Lily the professor declared her one of the most well-read and passionate students of Russian literature he’d ever met. She still loved it, still studied Russian grammar and could read anything in its original. I couldn’t wait for the weekend. My fourteen-hour workdays were registering in my feet, my upper arms, and my lower back. Glasses had replaced the contacts I’d worn for a decade because my eyes were too dry and tired to accept them anymore. I’d begun loosing weight already as I never had time to eat properly, although I was drinking an enormous amount of coffee. I’d already weathered a flue infection and had paled significantly, and it had been only four weeks. I was only twenty-three years old. And my boss hadn’t even been in the office yet. I knew I deserved a weekend. Saturday afternoon found us particularly motivated, and we managed to saunter round the city center for a few hours. We each bought some new clothes for the upcoming New Year’s party and had a mug of hot chocolate from a sidewalk café. By the time we made it back to her apartment, we were exhausted and happy and spent the rest of the night watching old movies and eating pizza. What did the girls hope to do that weekend?

Read the questions and choose the correct answer. The first drawings on walls appeared in caves thousands of years ago. Later the Ancient Romans and Greeks wrote their names and protest poems on buildings. Modern graffiti seems to have appeared in Philadelphia in the early 1960s, and by the late sixties it had reached New York. The new art form really took off in the 1970s, when people began writing their names, or ‘tags’, on buildings all over the city. In the mid seventies it was sometimes hard to see out of a subway car window, because the trains were completely covered in spray paintings known as ‘masterpieces’. In the early days, the ‘taggers’ were part of street gangs who were concerned with marking their territory. They worked in groups called ‘crews’, and called what they did ‘writing’ – the term ‘graffiti’ was first used by The New York Times and the novelist Norman Mailer. Art galleries in New York began buying graffiti in the early seventies. But at the same time that it began to be regarded as an art form, John Lindsay, the then mayor of New York, declared the first war on graffiti. By the 1980s it became much harder to write on subway trains without being caught, and instead many of the more established graffiti artists began using roofs of buildings or canvases. The debate over whether graffiti is art or vandalism is still going on. Peter Vallone, a New York city councillor, thinks that graffiti done with permission can be art, but if it is on someone else’s property it becomes a crime. ‘I have a message for the graffiti vandals out there,’ he said recently. ‘Your freedom of expression ends where my property begins.’ On the other hand, Felix, a member of the Berlin-based group Reclaim Your City, says that artists are reclaiming cities for the public from advertisers, and that graffiti represents freedom and makes cities more vibrant. For decades graffiti has been a springboard to international fame for a few. Jean-Michel Basquiat began spraying on the street in the 1970s before becoming a respected artist in the ’80s. The Frenchman Blek le Rat and the British artist Banksy have achieved international fame by producing complex works with stencils, often making political or humorous points. Works by Banksy have been sold for over £100,000. Graffiti is now sometimes big business.

Match the paragraphs (1-4) with the best headings. One heading is not needed. (1) The first drawings on walls appeared in caves thousands of years ago. Later the Ancient Romans and Greeks wrote their names and protest poems on buildings. Modern graffiti seems to have appeared in Philadelphia in the early 1960s, and by the late sixties, it had reached New York. The new art form really took off in the 1970s, when people began writing their names, or ‘tags’, on buildings all over the city. In the mid-seventies, it was sometimes hard to see out of a subway car window because the trains were completely covered in spray paintings known as ‘masterpieces’. (2) In the early days, the ‘taggers’ were part of street gangs who were concerned with marking their territory. They worked in groups called ‘crews’, and called what they did ‘writing’ – the term ‘graffiti’ was first used by The New York Times and the novelist Norman Mailer. Art galleries in New York began buying graffiti in the early seventies. But at the same time that it began to be regarded as an art form, John Lindsay, the then-mayor of New York, declared the first war on graffiti. By the 1980s it became much harder to write on subway trains without being caught, and instead many of the more established graffiti artists began using roofs of buildings or canvases. (3) The debate over whether graffiti is art or vandalism is still going on. Peter Vallone, a New York city councillor, thinks that graffiti done with permission can be art, but if it is on someone else’s property it becomes a crime. ‘I have a message for the graffiti vandals out there,’ he said recently. ‘Your freedom of expression ends where my property begins.’ On the other hand, Felix, a member of the Berlin-based group Reclaim Your City, says that artists are reclaiming cities for the public from advertisers, and that graffiti represents freedom and makes cities more vibrant. (4) For decades graffiti has been a springboard to international fame for a few. Jean-Michel Basquiat began spraying on the street in the 1970s before becoming a respected artist in the ’80s. The Frenchman Blek le Rat and the British artist Banksy have achieved international fame by producing complex works with stencils, often making political or humorous points. Works by Banksy have been sold for over £100,000. Graffiti is now sometimes big business.

Read the text and make the sentence complete. The British like forming queues when waiting for a bus, theatre tickets, in shops. There is even a saying: "An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one". One of the worst mistakes is to get on a bus without waiting for your turn. The British can get really angry at queue-jumpers - people who don't wait their turn in the queue. The British don't like to show their emotions. They usually don't easily get into a conversation with strangers. They don't like personal questions (for example, how much money they earn or about their family life). They take more time to make friends. They would like to know you better before they ask you home. If you are invited to a party, it is polite to call and say if you can or cannot come. Most parties are informal these days, so you can wear anything from jeans to suits. After the party call your hostess the next day or write a short "thank you" letter. Pubs are an important part of British life. Men go to the pub to relax, meet friends and sometimes to do business. It was unusual for women to go to pubs. These days there are only a few pubs where it is impossible for a woman to walk in. Children under the age of 14 are not allowed into some pubs. In Victorian times it used to be said that "children should be seen and not heard". It is quite common to have a snack walking down the road in Britain. Good and bad manners make up the social rules of a country. They are not always easy to learn because they are often not written down in books! The British have an expression for following these "unwritten rules": "When in Rome, do as the Romans do". You ___________ about what to wear at the party nowadays.

Read the text. For gaps 1-7 choose the correct word to complete each gap correctly.

Complete the questions with the question words.

Read the text. Choose the correct word to complete the gaps.

Complete the dialogue.

Read the text and mark the statements True, False or Not stated. A very special breakfast I opened my eyes on a warm Sunday morning in June to the sound of a crowd running in the direction of the hall and back to the kitchen. I opened the bedroom door and bumped into my sons dressed like Indians and holding up wooden arrows that nearly hurt me. “Good morning, Daddy!” they shouted and ran away. I slowly went to the kitchen dreaming of a cup of hot coffee. “Daddy, Mummy said you can spend Father’s Day with us. She won’t be home from shopping until late”, said Ian. That was a very special present from my wife! I thought I should also plan something extraordinary for Mother’s Day. The boys were dragging me by my arms to the kitchen table covered with all sorts of plates. “Daddy, we’ve made breakfast for you!” they cried. I decided to start with the chocolate dessert with honey syrup. When I had a small piece I forgot about chocolate and the syrup altogether as it was all sugar. “Tasty”, I murmured with a forced smile. The boys smiled and moved a plate with pieces of toast closer to me. I tried the one with the stuff that looked like peanut butter. “Is it all right?” wondered Trevor, “We’ve used the peanut butter from the fridge but we’ve added some additional ingredients.” I could hardly manage to say the single word, “good” in return. The bread was really good, but the unidentified stuff stuck to my mouth like glue. To try another dish I had to clear out my mouth first. The boys did not notice my inconvenience as they were busy getting the next dish ready. My first attempt to identify the dark brown object on the plate was not successful. “Carrot?” I tried, shyly. “No, Daddy, bacon!” said Ian proudly. “Mother did not let us use the gas stove, so we cooked it in the microwave. Five minutes only.” All I could do was to nod when the piece of coal fell down into my stomach. “Did she say you can't use the coffee maker either?” I added enthusiastically. “Sure! We made you instant coffee!” they cried and produced a cup. It was filled with warm brown liquid with coffee granules on its surface. That was the only time in my life I'd had coffee made from hot water from the sink. The meal came to an end. I said it was the best breakfast I had ever had. The boys smiled and promised to find new recipes next Father’s Day. I smiled in return and looked round the kitchen which was a complete mess. Trying to make the day even more special for me they wanted to clean it up. Luckily, at that moment, I mentioned the new cartoon and they rushed away into the living room immediately. I made myself a cup of coffee in the coffee machine, cleaned the kitchen and sat peacefully for half an hour. The boys’ cheerful cries could clearly be heard from the living room. When I looked in, they were so absorbed with Tom and Jerry that they did not notice me. “Boys!” I cried, “We are going to McDonald’s for lunch”. “Cool!” came the answer.

Read the texts and match the questions to the texts. There is one question extra.

Read the text and mark the statements True, False or Not stated. From hobby to a job Yesterday at the Minnesota Fashion Week, the 15-year-old designer Rachel Giddings amazed the fashion world when she showed her clothes for the first time. Everyone agreed that they looked beautiful and that the attention to detail was surprising from one so young. Rachel Giddings taught herself to sew when she was just seven years old. ‘I didn’t like my own clothes and I wanted to customize them, so I usually added things – like pockets or zips. Or I made them shorter! My mom used to get a bit worried about all the scissors and pins lying around,’ laughs Rachel. Then during the summer holidays one year, she was looking for something to do when she decided to do a summer course at a fashion and design school located in the heart of her home town, Woodbury, just outside Minneapolis. At the summer school, Rachel learned many tips and techniques from her teacher, Canadian-born Joan Lo. When Rachel was 12, Joan invited a few teenagers to join her at the famous Toronto Fashion Week. ‘I loved it’, said Rachel. ‘It was just amazing and I knew that I wanted to be there’. She completed more fashion courses with Joan, and later attended a Fashion Week with her successful first designs from her collection. Rachel’s Mum says that this came as no surprise. ‘It’s what she has always wanted,’ she says. At the Minnesota Fashion Week, Rachel looked absolutely fabulous in her smart leather jacket which had a decoration of a small blue butterfly on it. ‘That was hard. I looked for the right material for a long time’. The result was perfect because it looked like a real butterfly. ‘It’s such a fun thing to do’, says Rachel. ‘I think more people should make their own clothes – or at least change their clothes to make their own, if you see what I mean!’ People at the event were making plenty of positive comments about her skill and designs. She sold all of her items and the money went to her own favourite charity, a local children’s hospital. ‘My little sister was there for a few weeks last year and the stuff were just wonderful. I know that they need money to make the children’s stay in hospital as comfortable as possible’. Rachel admits that making and designing the clothes for the show was a lot of hard work. ‘At that time, I did all my work on the clothes after dinner, as I had a busy timetable at school and loads of homework as well. But it was worth it.’ When asked about her plans for the future, she says she is looking forward to a short break and then the preparations for next season’s collection will begin.

Complete the text with the options below.

★ Choose the correct alternatives to complete the text.

Read the text and choose the correct answer. Most people immediately think of the light bulb when they think of Thomas Edison. But although this genius did in fact invent the first practical, long-lasting light bulb, he had a hand in creating many more things we can still see around us today. He invented or contributed to recorded music, electrical systems, the telephone, the alkaline battery, X-rays and an early cinema projector. Incredibly, by the end of his life he held 1,093 patents and he is responsible for more inventions than any other inventor in history? Edison was undoubtedly a very clever person. Would you believe, though, that as a child, his teacher told his mother that he was too slow to learn? Later on, as an inventor, many of his inventions failed. So, what were the secrets of Edison’s success? Perhaps Edison’s greatest strength was that he absolutely refused to give up. He said, “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up." Unbelievably, it took Edison thousands of tries before he found the right filament to use for his light bulb. He wasn’t afraid of failure. He simply saw his bad ideas as stepping stones to better ones. Even after his factory was almost totally destroyed by fire, he said, “There is great value in disaster. All our mistakes are burned up and we can start anew." Three weeks later, Edison delivered the first phonograph. Edison was also very intolerant of laziness and believed in pushing himself to reach his goals. He set himself a target, for instance, to come up with a small invention every 10 days and a major one every 6 months. Another effective little rule Edison had was to take time out to relax while he was working at his "invention factory" in Menlo Park, New Jersey. He would drift off to sleep with several small metal balls in his hand. If he fell into a deep sleep, the balls would fall noisily onto the flow and wake him up and he’d scribble down whatever was in his mind! So next time you are stuck on a problem, why not sleep on it? Scientists now agree that relaxation and short naps can improve our concentration and creativity. All in all, Thomas Edison succeeded because he was determined, persistent and knew how to use his mistakes to his advantage. So, what are you waiting for? Tap into your inner genius and get busy achieving your dreams. You might not create anything as important as the light bulb in your lifetime, but we can all light up the world in our own way!

Установите соответствие между текстами A–G и заголовками 1–8. Занесите свои ответы в таблицу. Используйте каждую цифру только один раз. В задании один заголовок лишний. 1. Don't forget to rest 2. Write down and revise 3. Information and technology 4. Never put off till tomorrow 5. Set realistic targets 6. Study plans per week 7. Find a place to your liking 8. More important at college A. Today’s young generation will also need to master a new skill – digital literacy. Digital literacy can be defined as “the ability to find, evaluate, utilize, share, and create content using information technologies and the Internet”. Digital literacy, by this definition, encompasses a wide range of skills, all of which are necessary to succeed in an increasingly digital world. Students who lack digital literacy skills may soon find themselves at a disadvantage. As technology changes, students also need to keep updated. B. The key to becoming an effective student is learning how to study smarter, not harder. This becomes more and more true as you advance in your education. An hour or two of studying a day is usually sufficient to make it through high school with satisfactory grades, but when college arrives, there aren’t enough hours in the day to squeeze all your studying in if you don’t know how to make your study efficient without skipping sleep or meals. The vast majority of successful college students achieve their success by developing and applying effective study habits. C. Ever find yourself up late at night expending more energy trying to keep your eyelids open than you are studying? If so, it’s time for a change. Successful students typically space their work out over shorter periods of time and rarely try to cram all of their studying into just one or two sessions. If you want to become a successful student, then you need to learn to be consistent in your studies and to have regular, yet shorter, study sessions, with periods of rest in between. That will give your brain time to process the new information. D. Successful students schedule specific times throughout the week when they are going to study – and then they stick with their schedule. Students who study sporadically and whimsically typically do not perform as well as students who have a set study schedule. Сreating a weekly routine, where you set aside a period of time a few days a week, to review your courses will ensure you develop habits that will enable you to succeed in your education long term. You won’t get stressed or overwhelmed by portioning your workload. E. It is very easy, and common, to put off your study session because of lack of interest in the subject, because you have other things you need to get done, or just because the assignment is hard and needs effort and perseverance. Successful students do not procrastinate studying. If you procrastinate your study session, your studying will become less effective and you may not get everything accomplished that you need to. Procrastination also leads to rushing, and rushing is the number one cause of errors. F. Always make sure to take good notes in class. Before you start each study session, and before you start a particular assignment, review your notes thoroughly to make sure you know how to complete the assignment correctly. Reviewing before each study session will help you remember important subject matter learned during the day, and make sure your studying is targeted and effective. Successful students also look through what they have written down at their lectures and seminars during the week over the weekend. G. Everyone gets distracted by something: TV, or maybe family. Some people actually study better with a little background noise. When you’re distracted while studying you lose your train of thought and are unable to focus – both of which will lead to very ineffective studying. Before you start, find a place where you won’t be disturbed. For some people this is a quiet cubical in the recesses of the library. For others it is in a common area where there is little background noise. For some it may be a park or a garden – there are so many options to choose from!

Choose the right word to make the statements complete.

Find a mistake and write the correct question. How were your English class yesterday?

Find a mistake and write the correct question. Did you watched the football match last night?

Find a mistake and write the correct question. Where you went last Saturday?

Find a mistake and write the correct question. What presents did you got for your sister's birthday?

Find a mistake and write the correct question. Was you tired this morning?

Find a mistake and write the correct question. Do you went on holiday last year?

Complete the questions with did, was or were.

Complete the questions with did, was or were.

Complete the questions with did, was or were.

Complete the questions with did, was or were.

Complete the questions with did, was or were.

Complete the questions with what, when, where and who.

Read the text and choose the correct items.

Advanced level Read the text and answer the questions choosing the best option. In the United Kingdom compulsory education ends at the age of sixteen. However, many students stay on and complete two more years. For some (and I include myself in this category) school just becomes a habit, something you don't want to give up as it is so familiar to you. School is your world and you know nothing else and so you just keep on going. Imagine my feelings when sixth form was over and there were no more classes to complete! Instead of feeling a sense of joy and relief I panicked – what was I to do? The logical and best option was to go to university and continue my studies there, so that is precisely what I did. Unfortunately, the end of secondary education in the UK is not marked by any sense of celebration, like in other countries like the USA where students 'graduate' at the age of 18 and have a fancy ball. (In the UK you have to wait until you finish college or university before you can have that privilege). In the UK you just finish school! The lucky ones have a respectable collection of qualifications to their name as souvenirs; the unlucky ones may have slipped through the net somehow and end up going back to education at a later date when they feel more like studying. Education is more than qualifications, I admit that. But they are what counts at the end of the day. I made sure I got my fair share of them, just in case. Ask anyone what they remember most about school and they'd probably say the teachers. They are what makes education a humanistic experience and, therefore, are the most memorable: the good ones, the bad ones, the kindest ones, the most generous ones ... I was sad to leave them all, but I always was far too nostalgic! School dinners, of course, are remembered for all the wrong reasons – the long queues, the fat dinner ladies, the greasy food! Thank goodness, they have introduced healthy eating plans in schools! Pupils are luckier nowadays! Principally, school is all about belonging to a certain community and fitting in and making a contribution. I remember struggling at certain times in the year, trying to find time for musical productions and athletics competitions. I wanted to do everything and make my school proud. What was I more – an athlete or a musician? I was both, and a scholar too; an 'all-rounder', I suppose you could say. Luckily, I was able to rely on my natural ability to get me through the exams and didn't have to spend too much time on studying. I just listened to my teachers and got through that way. I thank them, really I do. So, it will come as no surprise to you to find out that I became a teacher after I finished university, I couldn't get enough of school and so I stayed there! But this time it's different. Now I can give something back to society. I face many challenges every day but I keep going.

Advanced level Read the text and mark the statements as true, false or not stated.

Read the text. Choose the correct option.

Match the headlines with the texts.