The major entertainment of the day

The menu of the first Thanksgiving dinner

Making the house ready for the holiday

Following a woman’s advice

Recipe for the main dish

Lucky birds

Different dates for one holiday

A.          

The people who started to celebrate Thanksgiving Day were the Pilgrims, the English Protestant settlers, and the tribe of the Wampanoag. It was in 1621. Their meals differed greatly from the modern one. They consisted of corn, shellfish and deer meat. At those times there were a lot of wild turkey, but nobody cooked them on that day. Deer meat was the most popular food of the holiday.

B.           

People of Canada celebrate Thanksgiving on the second Monday of October every year. It is celebrated to thank God for the past harvest and pray for the coming year. The United States, however, celebrates Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November every year. The reason behind the difference is geographical: autumn starts earlier in Canada than in America.

C.           

Thanksgiving is the right time to decorate homes. You can add some autumn-colored pillows to the sofa, light a candle and arrange some yellow or orange flowers in a vase. Special message boards have become very popular recently. As guests arrive for Thanksgiving, let them write what they are thankful for on a paper leaf and pin it up at the board. Paper leaves can be cut from scrapbooks and painted in autumn colours.

D.          

Watching football is definitely the most popular activity among Americans on Thanksgiving. The history of this tradition began in 1934. The reason was a great match between two football teams – the Detroit Lions and the Chicago Bears. That game turned out to be really successful. Since that time matches have been held every year (except the years of World War II) on Thanksgiving Day and have become very popular.

E.           

Once, President Truman chose a turkey on Thanksgiving Day and sent it back to the farm. That happened in 1947. Since that time it has become a tradition. Nowadays the President selects two turkeys and frees them, in front of a large crowd. Then the turkeys are sent to a farm house to let them live in peace.

F.           

Some people use the day after Thanksgiving Day to make trips to see family members or friends. Others use the day to go shopping. The Americans call the day after Thanksgiving ‘Black Friday’. It first got its name in 1960 in Philadelphia. At that time there were a lot of stores in the city. Many people visited the city for shopping, it was overcrowded and the local people considered it a bad black day. Nowadays ‘Black Friday’ means the beginning of the Christmas shopping season.

G.          

In 1863 Sara Hale, an editor and writer, wrote a letter to President Lincoln and advised him to proclaim a national day of Thanksgiving. She selected the last Thursday in November because, as she said, the harvests were finished, the elections were over, and people were back from their summer vacations. She even suggested a list of dishes for the traditional holiday menu. President Lincoln liked her idea and declared a national holiday, Thanksgiving Day.

Чтение 55.

Прочитайте тексты и установите соответствие между текстами и их заголовками: к каждому тексту, обозначенному буквами A–G, подберите соответствующий заголовок, обозначенный цифрами 1–8. Используйте каждую цифру только один раз. В задании есть один лишний заголовок.

 

The English they speak

The tracks of the other world

Traces of ancient wildlife

A place between Europe and Britain

The island’s traditions

A safe place for disappearing animals

A multi-coloured place

8. It is not about the colour!

A.          

The Isle of Wight is considered to be the largest island of England. The island measures about 380 square km, of which about half is an area of outstanding natural beauty. This paradise is located in the English Channel which separates the continent and Great Britain. About 140,000 people live on the island and, due to its beauty and convenient location, several million people visit it each year.

B.           

The accent of the Isle of Wight is similar to the traditional dialect of southern England. While speaking, the natives of the island drop some consonants and put an emphasis on longer vowels. The Isle of Wight has its own local and regional words. Some of their words (e.g. grockle – visitor, tourist and nipper – a younger male person) are used in the neighbouring areas of the mainland too.

C.           

There are many red squirrels which are the only squirrel native to the British Isles. However, there are few of them left on the mainland now. Red squirrels are being replaced by American grey squirrels. The grey squirrels carry the deadly para pox virus, which is fatal to the reds. The strait between the island and the mainland provides a barrier to grey squirrels. It is illegal to bring a grey squirrel onto the island, with a penalty of two-year's imprisonment.

D.          

The Isle of Wight is often said to be the most ghostly island in the world. There you can find everything – from ghost monks and grey ladies to ghost murderers and their victims on the island! There are ghost-ships out at sea, and even a ghost-train still running on long vanished rails. It’s no wonder that it attracts thousands of ghost hunters every year.

E.           

The Isle of Wight is not large, but it has lots of sights to see. One of the most well-known places is Alum Bay which is famous for the sand on its beach. The sand is of different colours – from red to purple, from brown to white. Tourists usually buy a glass paperweight with stripes of coloured sand, and take it back home as a souvenir. From Alum Bay you can also see The Needles, the legendary chalk rocks that rise up from the ocean floor.

F.           

The Isle of Wight has recently been declared the Dinosaur capital of the UK! The land which forms the island was once the perfect home for dinosaurs. More than 25 different species were found on the small island including the largest British dinosaur, the Sauropod. In 2009, five-year-old Daisy Morris discovered the remains of an undiscovered species on the beach, which has been named after her – the Vectidraco (Dragon of the Wight) Daisymorrisae!

G.          

The correct spelling of the island’s name is Wight not White. Wight is a Middle English word that was used to describe a creature or living being. There are many stories about how and why the island got its name, most of them seem reasonable. The experts, however, do not have a common opinion. The only thing that can be said with any degree of certainty is that it has nothing to do with the colour of the chalk cliff and the island should not be spelt the Isle of White!

 

 

Чтение 56.

Прочитайте тексты и установите соответствие между текстами и их заголовками: к каждому тексту, обозначенному буквами A–G, подберите соответствующий заголовок, обозначенный цифрами 1–8. Используйте каждую цифру только один раз. В задании есть один лишний заголовок.

 

Four-legged guards

He had several lives

A trip to the sky

A bilingual animal