1. What’s the problem in Trudy’s family? How common is it?

2. Sum up the advice given by the readers. Which of the advice may help, do you think? Which advice would you follow if you had the same problem? What advice would you offer Trudy?

Class Discussion

Argue for or against one of the following statements:

a) Smoking is anti-social.

b) Cigarette advertising encourages people to smoke and therefore must be banned.

Competitions

• You have entered a competition to make a slogan for an anti-smoking campaign. You must complete the following sentence in less than 30 words: “If you don’t give up smoking…”

• You have entered a similar competition for an anti-smoking poster. Bring yours.

Fun with grammar

1. Proverbs

Read the proverbs; try to memorize them. Give their Russian equivalents. Choose one proverb you like best, explain its meaning and comment upon it or use it in a short story.

It is good fishing in troubled waters.

By doing nothing, we learn to do ill.

Seeing is believing.

He who likes borrowing dislikes paying.

Doing is better than saying.

Gossiping and lying go hand in hand.

Fasting comes after feasting.

It’s no use pumping a dry well.

Saying and doing are two things.

Fools grow without watering.

Between two evils ‘tis not worth choosing.

It is no use crying over spilt milk.

2. Familiar Quotations

Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.

William James (1842 – 1910)

There is nothing more tragic in life than the utter impossibility of changing what you have done.

John Galsworthy (1867 – 1933)

Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.

Mark Twain (1835 – 1910)

A man who gives his children habits of industry provides for them better than by giving them a fortune.

Richard Whately (1787 – 1863)

Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified.

Samuel Johnson (1709 – 1784)

The secret of education lies in respecting the pupil.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 – 1882)

A little evil is often necessary for obtaining a great good.

Voltaire (1694 –1778)

Our great glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

Oliver Goldsmith (1728 – 1774)

In the world there are only two tragedies: one is not getting what one wants, and the other getting it.

Oscar Wilde.

3. Limericks

There was an Old Person of Buda,

Whose conduct grew ruder and ruder,

Till at last with a hammer

They silenced his clamour,

By smashing that Person of Buda.

There was an Old Person of Cadiz,

Who was always polite to the ladies;

But in handling his daughter,

He fell into the water,

Which drowned that Old Person of Cadiz.

There was an Old Person of South,

Who had an immoderate mouth;

But in swallowing a dish,

That was quite full of fish,

He was choked, that Old Man of the South.

There was an Old Person of Nile,

Who sharpened his nails with a file,

Till he cut off his thumbs,

And said calmly, “This comes

Of sharpening one’s nails with a file!”