7. The Long Way Home.

Hamish and I sailed from Carenero in Venezuela on the 24^th April at 4.30 p.m. I had taken a year oft from my job as a university lecturer to sail round the world and I was finally on my way home. We had had enough excitement to last us a lifetime on the trip but we had no idea what was to happen next!

The first pan of the journey was about 650 miles to Antigua across the open Caribbean. As night began to fall, we realised that the winds were getting stronger. Sailing was difficult and our second night was a tough one. I had never seen the Caribbean so rough before. On the morning of the third day, I heard someone banging on the cabin roof. The wind had dropped a little the night before and Hamish and I had managed to get a few hours' sleep. 'You'd better get up, John.' said Hamish. There's something you ought to see.'

When I looked over the side, I could hardly believe my eyes. We were over 200 miles from the nearest land, but there was a small, open boat with a man and a parrot in it. 1'he man's eyes were wide open but they were full of hope and fear. We could just make out what the man was saving before we lowered the sails and started the engine. '11 days-without food and water'.

After several attempts to get close enough to rescue him; in the high seas, we managed to pull him and the parrot out of the tiny boat to safety. He could hardly believe his luck. The parrot flew onto Hamish's shoulder. 'It's very friendly,' said the man quietly and politely. Later, after drinking some water — he was too weak to eat anything — he told us his story. He had apparently been swept out to sea by the storm. He had tried to drop anchor but he was too far out to sea for it to reach the sea bed. His only hope had been rescue by a passing ship.

We took Martin, his parrot and his boat to Antigua. It was a gloriously sunny day as we sailed into the harbour. 'Thank you for saving my life,' said Martin quietly. 'It's a good feeling to save someone's life, ' said Hamish. 1 tried to say 'It was nothing,' but, deeply moved by what had happened; I was unable to get the last word out.

Questions:

1. What was the most exiting thing that happened to the narrator?

2. How did the man with the parrot get 200 miles into the sea from the nearest shore?

3. What did they feel like after they had saved the man's life?

8. A Story of George Robinson.

George Robinson was ambitious but not very clever when be was at school and he left when he was sixteen. At first he did not know what to do, but then he tried selling cheap toys in the street, and it quicklv became clear that he was a clever businessman. Soon, without much struggle, he had a shop of his own, and it was not long before he owned three big shops in his town, in which he employed over sixty people. Before he was thirty he also had quite a big factory for making toys, and had succeeded in making a considerable fortune.

George had always been interested in local politics. He was elected to the town council when he was thirty-two, and was such a busy and useful member of it that he rapidly became mayor.

Although he was very successful in international Industry as well as in local government, George was still not a very well-educated man, and as he was also a very busy one, he began to have the speeches he had to make written for him by a special speechwriter. Usually he did not have much time to go through a speech before giving it, but the speechwriter was good at thinking up clever things for George to say, so George never had any difficulty with him and got used to trusting him. In the end he did not trouble even to look at what he was given until it was time to make the speech.

Then one day George had to make an important speech at a formal official ceremony marking the opening of a library which he had persuaded the other distinguished businessmen in the town to help him to pay for. He had been on urgent business for a week before this occasion, so he had had no time to read through his speech at all.

When it was his turn to speak to the audience, he stood up on the stage, took his speech out of his pocket and began to read it He enjoyed jokes, and always asked his speechwriter to put a few good ones in each speech he wrote for him, to put his audience in a good temper. This time, sure enough, he came to the words, 'And that reminds me of one of my favourite stories.'

George had actually never heard that story before, when he looked at it before reading it aloud, he burst out laughing and laughed so much that he fell off the platform on which he was standing and broke his arm.

Questions:

1. George succeeded in making a considerable fortune because he:

A. Got inheritance. B. Was good at gambling.

C. Was a born businessman. D. Was a mayor.

2. Did George do business in his own country, or in foreign ones?

A. In both. B. Only in foreign ones.

C. Only in his own country.

D. Neither in his own country nor in foreign ones.

3. George asked his speechwriter to put some jokes in each speech because:

A. Be didn't know what to speak about.

B. He wanted to make the audience happy and cheerful.

C. He wanted to distract the attention of the audience from urgent problems.

D. He wanted to become more popular.

4. Why didn't George check what speechwriter had written for him?

A. Because he didn't find it necessary. B. Because he took no interest.

C. Because he didn't want to waste time on that.

D. Because he knew that the writer did his work well.

5. Why did George fall off the platform?

A. Because he broke his arm. B. Because the joke made him laugh so much.

C. Because he slipped. D. Because he was reading his speech loudly.