What do you know about Great Britain? Here is a short test. Choose the correct answer.

 

1. What is the formal title of the country?

a) the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; b) Britain; c) England.

2. The population of Great Britain is

a) over 67 million people; b) over 47 million people; c) over 57 million people.

3. Who presides over the House of Commons?

a) the Prime Minister; b) the Lord Chancellor; c) the Speaker.

4. How many parts make the UK?

a) 3; b) 4; c) 2.

5. Who is the head of the State in Britain? a) the Prime Minister; b) the Queen; c) the Speaker. 6. Who is the head of the Government in the UK? a) the Queen; b) the Speaker; c) the Prime Minister. 7. The voting age in Great Britain is … a) 21; b) 18; c) 16. 8. The UK consists of a) districts; b) states; c) counties. 9. What’s the name of the British flag?

a) Stripes and Stars; b) Union Jack; c) Welsh Dragon.

10. Margaret Thatcher was

a) the Queen of Britain; b) the British Prime Minister; c) the famous writer.

11. Which is the present ruling party?

a) the Conservative Party; b) the Liberal Party; c) the Labour Party.

12. Who presides over the House of Lords?

a) the Prime Minister; b) the Lord Chancellor; c) the Speaker.

13. The seat of the British Parliament is …

a) the Tower of London; b) Buckingham Palace; c) Westminster Palace.

14. The ‘shadow cabinet’ means

a) a cabinet situated in the shadow; b) the official opposition’s cabinet; c) a dull cabinet.

 

1 – 6 – Poor! The following information would be extremely important for you. Good Luck!

7 – 11 – Good job!

12 –14 – Excellent job!

 

There are a lot of international words, which are used in the text below. Look through the words and put them into the correct boxes: nouns and adjectives. Try to guess their meaning.

monarch, parliament, Catholic, Protestant, historical, factor, stability, political, democratic, function, local, opposition, system, practice, centre, secret, traditional, leader, cabinet, official.

 

Nouns	Adjectives
democracy role	constitutional formal

Reading

Read the text about the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and explain the words and word combinations in bold.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (1)

 

Britain is a parliamentary democracy with a constitutional monarch as its head of State. Its formal title is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The total area is about 120.000 square miles. It is composed of four parts: England (London), Wales (Cardiff), Scotland (Glasgow) and Northern Ireland (Belfast).

The east coast is washed by the North Sea and the west coast is washed by the Atlantic Ocean. There are no high mountains in Great Britain. The highest mountains are the Snowdon (3000ft.) and the Highlands. The longest rivers are the Severn and the Thames. The climate of the country is mild. The worst thing about the climate is the thick fog.

The population of Great Britain is over 57 million people. About 20 per cent of the British people live in rural areas, the others live in urban districts, towns and cities.

Great Britain has highly developed industries. One of the leading industries is the textile industry (Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Bradford). The country is known for the metal goods (Birmingham, Sheffield), heavy and light machinery and shipbuilding industries (Newcastle). Among other industries are steel, coal-mining, oil and engineering. Agriculture is also important industry in Great Britain.

The official language is English; the capital city of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is London.

Complete this chart with information from the text in Ex.3. Then speak about the country.

 

name
area
population
language
capital
largest cities
head of State
longest rivers
highest mountains
main industries

 

Read the text below, translate it, using a dictionary and try to remember the words and word combinations in bold.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (2)

Great Britain (England, Wales, and Scotland) came into existence when the English and Scotland crowns were united at the beginning of the seventeenth century and their parliaments a century later. Wales had come under the sway of the English crown in medieval times.

So, too, had Ireland, but the British and Irish parliaments were not united until 1801. In 1922 the southern part of Ireland, predominantly Roman Catholic, became a separate state.

Northern Ireland, with its Protestant majority, chose to continue as part of the United Kingdom and had its own parliament between 1921 and 1972. The deeply rooted historical divisions between the majority Protestant and the minority Roman Catholic Communitiesremaina major factor in the continuing civil disturbances in Northern Ireland; the Government’s aim is to restore peace and stability and to find ways of giving back to the people more control over their own affairs.

Political stability owes much to the monarchy, the continuity of which has been broken only once (during the briefrepublic in the seventeenth century) in over a thousand years. The monarch’s power is limited by Parliament. Democratic government has developed from the establishment of Parliament over 700 years ago. As a constitutional monarch, the Sovereign now performs the functions of an impartial head of the state.