1. Which of the following is something that Mrs Smallburn did not win in competitions?

A house.

The house where the family live.

Money and goods to the value of £3,000.

Five cars.

2. How does Mrs Smallburn earn а living?

She works as a geography teacher.

She enters and wins competitions.

She runs a service giving advice on how to win competitions.

She has her own business and she makes money from competitions.

3. Mrs Smallburn used to

win more than she does now.

enter more competitions than she does now.

be better at winning competitions than she is now.

be known as the 'Queen of Competitions'.

4. Mrs Smallburn does not

want to buy a fax machine.

want to win a fax machine.

look forward to the postman coming.

try to win things her family want.

5. What is Mrs Smallburn's attitude to entering competitions?

She is obsessed with it.

She is very keen on it.

She is disappointed with the things she wins.

She thinks it is a strange way to earn a living.

6. The writer of the text thinks Mrs Smallburn's 'extreme enthusiasm' is the result-of

the excellent prizes she has won.

the feeling she gets from winning.

Not being free to buy what she wants.

an obsession.

7. The article is intended to

shock the reader.

annoy the reader.

entertain the reader.

make the reader feel sad.

Текст 10

Soap Operas and Reality

The soap opera depends so much on human interaction that we may use the term to describe our own conflicts. ("Gee, my father isn't speaking to me, my sister is getting an abortion, and I’m flunking out of school. My life is really like a soap opera!") In reality, few lives are as troubled and confused as those on the soaps. As with much of TV, our lives are dull by comparison.

Soap opera characters are carefully created for the mass audience. They are usually good or evil, positive or negative, with well-defined personalities. They are usually young (25-35), well dressed, and financially comfortable. Leading men are doctors, and lawyers. Leading women are attractive and well manicured. Indoor sets are unusually large and boast wall-to-wall carpeting, plush drapes, and built in wet bars. Soap opera characters tend to be very sophisticated and do a lot of eating, drinking, and arguing.

Regular viewers can name all the characters in a given soap and describe their history in detail. The casual observer gets lost in the plot, which has more twists and turns than a mountain highway.

Let's see... John's son is getting married today to the woman who used to be his father's wife, who was recently divorced from the doctor who delivered his illegitimate daughter. That illegitimate daughter is really Bill's mother, Nell, whose father was a doctor where Bill was in medical school. We know that Bill never graduated but came to town and set up practice anyway. Things were going great until he and Nell got divorced, but then she found out she was his mother and...

Unlike prime-time shows, soaps are often shot only a day or two before they are aired. This five-show-a-week schedule takes its toll on cast and crew. It really keeps the cast on their toes. One advantage to the schedule is that the soap script may incorporate recent news events, while prime-time shows, shot as much as six months in advance, cannot.

Here are some American students' comments on soap operas. Do you agree or disagree with them?

1. Soap operas are time consuming and non-productive. There is very little to be learned from watching them. Their quality of production has improved over the years, but it is still inferior to most other television.

2. Soap operas have very little if any redeemable qualities. They, the soap operas, focus on a small segment of the population. They are used as an escape by middle class America who attempt to live vicariously through the actors and characters.

3. Soap operas are addictive like a drug. One has to watch every day. It makes one's mind waste away.

4. What goes on in soap operas is very similar to what goes on in life, only soap operas make it look glamourous.

5. They do not challenge people or teach them anything, but some people don 4 want anything more.