Political system of Great Britain

Задание 3. Перевести текст. Составить словар из незнакомых слов. Выучить их.

 1

Great Britain

The full name of Great Britain is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It is not a big country. Its area is 244,000 square kilometres. Its population is about 57 million. The main nationalities are English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish. The United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy. It is a monarch as its Head of the state. The monarch has very little power and can only reign with the support of Parliament. Great Britain is the member of a voluntary association of 50 independent states called the Commonwealth. It is also a member of the European Community and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). It has diplomatic relations with 166 states.

Great Britain is situated on the British Isles, which are separated from the European Continent by the North Sea and the English Channel. Its western coast is washed by the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea.

Great Britain consists of four parts: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. There are no high mountains there. They occupy the greatest part of Wales and the Highlands of Scotland. There are many lakes in Great Britain. Loch Lomond and Loch Ness in Scotland are the largest ones. There are no greatest forests in the country. The most famous o ne is Sherwood Forest in the east of England.

Great Britain is rich in coal, iron, copper, lead, zinc, salt, china clay, granite.

Вариант 2

Political system of Great Britain

The United Kingdom is the constitutional monarchy. The Queen is the head of the state. Nevertheless, according to the constitution, power in the country belongs to Parliament. The British Parliament consists of the House of Lords and the House of Commons. In reality, the House of Commons has true power. New bills are introduced and debated here. If the majority of the members are in favour of a bill it goes to the House of Lords to be debated and then to the Queen for Signing. Only then, it becomes law.

The House of Commons is made up of 650 elected members (MPs). They are elected by the people at the general elections every five years.

There are four political parties in Great Britain – the Conservative, the Liberal, the Labour and the Communist Parties. The political parties choose candidates in elections. The party, which wins the majority of seats, forms the Government. Its leader usually becomes the Prime Minister, who chooses about 20 MPs from his party and they form Cabinet of Ministers. Each minister is responsible for a particular area of government.

Parliament in London is responsible for deciding national policy, but local governments provide many public services such as education, libraries, police and others.

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Education in Great Britain

All children and young people between the ages of 4 or 5 and 16 must receive full-time education. About 93 percent receive free education from public funds, the rest attend private free-paying schools. The average pupil-teacher ratio for all schools is about 17 to 1.

The principal examination, at about the age of 16, is the General Certificate of Secondary Education. A mixture of the advanced level of the General Certificate of Education and advanced supplementary level (giving opportunities for study in a wider range of subjects) may be taken at 18.It is the standard for entrance to higher education courses as well as many forms of professional training. About 2/5 of all young people get some form of post-school education courses at the 47 universities, 31 polytechnics,15 Scottish central institutions and other publicly funded colleges. Over 90 percent of students on full-time higher-education courses receive tuition and maintenance grants from public funds.

The public exams taken by British schoolchildren are GCSEs (the General Certificate of Secondary Education). They are taken them at 16. Some children take 3or 4, other take as many as 10 or 11. Those who have passed GCSEs may remain at school for another 2 years and take their “A” (advanced) level exams. Any student who wants to go to University needs to pass at least 2 or 3 “A” levels.

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London and Londoners (I)

London is very different, it has many faces. You can find there beautiful mansions and red brick buildings, tall and dirty that look like prisons; busy squares and streets full of well-dressed people and dusty narrow streets where - children play on the pavement; clean and comfortable restaurants and cafes and eating rooms with unclean walls and tables with five or six persons sitting in a row at each table; big shops with carpets and soft seats everywhere and wonderful things for sale and small shops full of old clothes, some of them not even very clean. Past and present, old and modern, richness and poverty, beauty and ugliness.

London is full of customs and traditions. For a foreigner it seems noisy and overcrowded. There is a lot of traffic in the streets of London: endless lines of buses, motor cars, and taxes. Most of London buses are the famous red double-deckers that have two platforms (or decks) for passengers. Bright red, they look very nice in the grey streets of London. There are also green one-storied buses; they run from London to the countryside. You can also see brown buses in the streets of London, which belong to British railways.

The first buses came on the streets of London in 1829. There were buses pulled by horses. The upper desk had no roof. The bus conductor gave passengers raincoats and umbrellas if it started raining.

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London and Londoners (II)

The traffic lights in London are not as it is here. The red lights says "Stop", the green light says "Wait" and only when you see the yellow light, which says "Cross" you may cross the street. "Keep left" is the general rule in Great Britain, "keep left" is written on the pavement, and people keep left. They cross the street at the black-and- white "Zebra" crossing; but if they are in a hurry they just run across anywhere as some people in our country do. Sometimes they are stopped by a policeman (they call him "Bobby"), a tall man in a helmet, white sleeves and a white stick in his hand, who stands at street corners regulating the traffic.

There are also woman police in England. They have the same powers as men (but not the same pay!). There are women detectives and woman traffic police who regulate street traffic. However, most of their work is looking after women and children. You can often see them patrolling parks and other places where children play.

Sometimes you will see a group of cavalrymen riding on black horses through the streets of one part of London. The cavalrymen wear red uniforms, shining helmets, long black boots and long white gloves. They carry swords. These men are Life Guards. Their special duty is to guard the king or queen of Great Britain and very important guests of the country.

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London and Londoners (III)

You will also see fruit and vegetable stalls on the pavement or in a corner between two big buildings. The man at the stall often cries out his wares - bananas, apples, cherries, pears.

One o'clock is lunchtime in London. All the activities of the busiest quarters stop 60 minute. The streets are full of people hurrying to have their lunch.

A lot of them go into a pub and have a sandwich and a glass of beer. The rich walk quietly to the best restaurants. The youngest and the poorest sit on benches eating their sandwiches or buns or just drinking tea.

Londoners do not have to go far find green fields and flowers, because London is very rich in parks and gardens^ Londoners have their parks and are very proud of them. There is Green Park and Saint James's Park, Victoria Park and Finsbury Park, Battersea Park and Regent's Park with the Zoo and, outside London, the wonderful Kew Gardens that is a botanical garden with many exotic plants and flowers.

Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens today form one single park, the largest in London. Hyde Park is certainly the most popular of London's parks. It may be called a National Park. Londoners love it. On Sunday mornings in summer you can see lots of Londoners sitting with their families on the grass or listening to the music

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The English Character

Englishmen are naturally polite and are never tired of saying "Thank you" and "I'm sorry". They are generally disciplined you never hear loud talk in the street. They do not rush for seats in buses and trains, but they take their seats in queues at bus stops. They will never shut the door i n your face but will hold it open for you.

English people do not shake hands when meeting one another, they just smile and say "Hello!". They say "How do you do" sometimes, but not very often. Only to people they meet for the first time.

Englishmen do not show their emotions even in tragic situations. They seem to remain good-tempered and cheerful under difficulties.

Most English love gardens and this is probably one reason why so many people wish to live in houses more than flats. They want to have a bit of land where they could plant something: tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers, cabbage, or grow flowers. They love flowers very much.

The Englishman says, "My house is my castle", because he doesn't wish his neighbours to overlook his doings. It is a tradition with English people to have fireplaces in their houses. A fireplace is a place where a fire is made. It is usually made of stone in the wall of the room and with a chimney in the wall. A chimney, therefore, is the main feature of almost every roof.

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Your Visit to England

One of these days you may find it possible to visit England. From the moment you go on board the ship that will take you to an English port or the airliner that will fly you to London, you will see signs and notices that will give you useful information and warnings.

Here are some examples and explanations that will help you.

If you come by air, you will see when you take your seat in the plane, a notice that says: NO SMOKING; FASTEN SEAT BELTS. Smoking is forbidden while the plane is on the ground, while it is taking off, and until it has risen to a good height. There are two leather belts or straps fastened to the sides of your seat. The ends of them must be fastened together so that the belt is across your lap. When the plane is well up in the air, the light behind this notice is switched off. Then you are allowed to smoke and may unfasten your seat belt. The notice will appear again when the plane is landing.

If you come by steamer, you will see numerous notices. Perhaps there will be arrows to show you which parts of the ship are for first-class passengers and which parts are for tourist-class passengers. Large rooms in a ship are called SALOONS, so when you see DINING-SALOON you know where to go when it is time for lunch.

You may see a notice TO THE BOAT DECK. This is the deck where you will find the boats' that can be lowered to the water if there is any danger of the ship sinking.

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London (I)

When we think of Paris, Rome, Madrid, Lisbon, Athens and other European capitals we think of them as "cities". When we think of the whole of modern London, that great area covering several hundred s quare miles, we do not think of it as "a city", not even as a city and its suburbs. Modern London is not one city that has steadily expanded through the centuries; it is a number of cities, towns and villages that have grown together, during the past centuries, to make one vast urban area.

London today stretches for nearly thirty miles from north to south and for nearly thirty miles from east to west. This is the area known as "Greater London", with a population of nine millions. The "City" of London is a very small part of the whole; it is only one square mile in area, and the number of people who live and sleep in "the City" is only about ten thousand.

If you fly over London in a helicopter, for example, you will see below you the winding Thames, flowing from west to east and dividing London into the two parts known as the north bank and the south bank.

If from the air, we can pick out a few landmarks, we shall find it easier to understand how London has grown. Two landmarks stand out clearly: St. Paul's Cathedral in the City, and, about two miles westwards, the group of buildings near Westminster Bridge, the Palace of Westminster (with the Houses of Parliament) and Westminster Abbey.

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London (II)

London is one of the world's three largest cities (the other two are New York and Tokyo). It is one of the world’s most i mportant ports and the capital of Great Britain.

The Romans founded a s ettlement on the River Thames 2000 years ago. They called it Londinium. London became a prosperous trading centre during the Middle Ages. Since that time, it has continued to grow in size and prosperity. There are more than 10 thousand streets in London. About 7 million people live there.

There are four main parts in London: the City, Westminster, the West End and the East End.

The very centre of London is Trafalgar Square. There is Nelson's column with the statue of Admiral Nelson on the top. In the north of Trafalgar Square, there is the National Gallery. It exhibits all schools of European painting from the 13th to the 19th century and includes works by Van Dyck, Rubens, Goya, Leonardo da Vinci and Rembrandt.

Not far from Trafalgar Square there is a little street with very ordinary houses. This is Downing Street, and for the last 200 years at house №10, the Prime Minister of England has resided.

Downing Street leads to Whitehall. Whitehall was a palace where from the 12th to the 16th century the kings and queens of England were living. Now it is just a street of government offices.

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London (III)

The Court is at Buckingham Palace from the nineteenth century. It is in the City of Westminster. Here, and farther west, are the finest theatres, cinemas and conceit halls, the large museums, the most luxurious hotels, the largest department stores and the most famous shops. The name "West End" began to be associated with wealth, luxury and goods of high quality.

Visitors with much money who come chiefly for enjoyment pass most of their time in the West End. Those who come to learn about London's history will find much interesting in the City. Here most of the streets are narrow, and the traffic is often very slow. Many of these narrow streets run down to the Thames, and at the end of them warehouses can be seen. The City is concerned with finance, but it is also a market for goods of almost every land, from all parts of the world.

The Port of London is to the east of the City. Here, today, are miles and miles of docks, and the great industrial areas that depend on shipping. This is the East End of London, unattractive in appearance, but very important to the country's commerce. On the river, there are ocean-going ships, and lines of barges pulled along by tugs. Ships up to 6.000 tons can come up to London Bridge, below which is the part of the river called the Pool. They can pass under Tower Bridge. It takes only five minutes to raise the two halves of the roadway to allow a ship to pass.

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The climate of England

The Gulf Stream, a warm current flowing from the Gulf of Mexico round the North of Europe affects the climate of the West coast of Europe, the British Isles and Iceland.

In these western countries, summers are not so warm and winters are not as cold as in the rest of Europe.

Spring is the season when nature returns to life. Vegetation grows rapidly for there are periods of sunshine broken by occasional showers. Clouds are continually floating across the sky and after the rain we see a magnificent rainbow.

It seldom gets very hot in summer, as there is generally a cooling breeze from the South-West, but the temperature may rise to 32 degrees in the shade. The weather becomes sultry, the heat grows oppressive, and the air gets stifling. The sky is suddenly overcast with low, black clouds and distant peals of thunder indicate the approach of a thunderstorm. Later, dazzling flashes of lightning are followed almost immediately by a clap of thunder directly overhead, and it pours with rain. Anyone caught in the rain takes shelter, otherwise he may get wet to the skin.

In autumn, the leaves turn yellow and reddish, and fall to the ground. Then most birds migrate to warm countries. Autumn is the season of mist, of windy days, of biting winds, of beautiful sunsets, and chilly days when it drizzles. A spell of sunny weather in October is called an Indian Summer.

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New York

New York is one of the largest cities in the world. Its population is over 11 million people. New York is an industrial and cultural centre of the country. Most business is cantered in Manhattan Island. The whole area is very small, that is why skyscrapers were invented in New York and especially, in Wall Street. Wall Street is a narrow street with big houses, but it is well known all over the world as the busiest street in the USA. People do business there. There are two more world-famous streets - Broadway and Fifth Avenue. Broadway is the centre of the theatres and nightlife. It is known as "The Great White Way" because of the electric signs, which turn night into day. It is the city that never goes to sleep. Buses and subway run all night. There are many drugstores and restaurants, which never close their doors. There are cinemas with films that start at midnight.

Fifth Avenue is the great shopping, hotel and club avenue. If you go along this avenue, you come to Harlem, where the black people of New York live, the coloured workers, teachers, doctors and musicians.

New York is the largest port in America. More than half the trade of the United States goes through this city.

There are many places of interest in New York. They are the Statue of Liberty, the United Nations Building, Empire State Building, Columbia University, City Hall, New York Public Library and others.

 

 

 

Задание 3. Перевести текст. Составить словар из незнакомых слов. Выучить их.

 1

Great Britain

The full name of Great Britain is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It is not a big country. Its area is 244,000 square kilometres. Its population is about 57 million. The main nationalities are English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish. The United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy. It is a monarch as its Head of the state. The monarch has very little power and can only reign with the support of Parliament. Great Britain is the member of a voluntary association of 50 independent states called the Commonwealth. It is also a member of the European Community and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). It has diplomatic relations with 166 states.

Great Britain is situated on the British Isles, which are separated from the European Continent by the North Sea and the English Channel. Its western coast is washed by the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea.

Great Britain consists of four parts: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. There are no high mountains there. They occupy the greatest part of Wales and the Highlands of Scotland. There are many lakes in Great Britain. Loch Lomond and Loch Ness in Scotland are the largest ones. There are no greatest forests in the country. The most famous o ne is Sherwood Forest in the east of England.

Great Britain is rich in coal, iron, copper, lead, zinc, salt, china clay, granite.

Вариант 2

Political system of Great Britain

The United Kingdom is the constitutional monarchy. The Queen is the head of the state. Nevertheless, according to the constitution, power in the country belongs to Parliament. The British Parliament consists of the House of Lords and the House of Commons. In reality, the House of Commons has true power. New bills are introduced and debated here. If the majority of the members are in favour of a bill it goes to the House of Lords to be debated and then to the Queen for Signing. Only then, it becomes law.

The House of Commons is made up of 650 elected members (MPs). They are elected by the people at the general elections every five years.

There are four political parties in Great Britain – the Conservative, the Liberal, the Labour and the Communist Parties. The political parties choose candidates in elections. The party, which wins the majority of seats, forms the Government. Its leader usually becomes the Prime Minister, who chooses about 20 MPs from his party and they form Cabinet of Ministers. Each minister is responsible for a particular area of government.

Parliament in London is responsible for deciding national policy, but local governments provide many public services such as education, libraries, police and others.

Вариант 3

Education in Great Britain

All children and young people between the ages of 4 or 5 and 16 must receive full-time education. About 93 percent receive free education from public funds, the rest attend private free-paying schools. The average pupil-teacher ratio for all schools is about 17 to 1.

The principal examination, at about the age of 16, is the General Certificate of Secondary Education. A mixture of the advanced level of the General Certificate of Education and advanced supplementary level (giving opportunities for study in a wider range of subjects) may be taken at 18.It is the standard for entrance to higher education courses as well as many forms of professional training. About 2/5 of all young people get some form of post-school education courses at the 47 universities, 31 polytechnics,15 Scottish central institutions and other publicly funded colleges. Over 90 percent of students on full-time higher-education courses receive tuition and maintenance grants from public funds.

The public exams taken by British schoolchildren are GCSEs (the General Certificate of Secondary Education). They are taken them at 16. Some children take 3or 4, other take as many as 10 or 11. Those who have passed GCSEs may remain at school for another 2 years and take their “A” (advanced) level exams. Any student who wants to go to University needs to pass at least 2 or 3 “A” levels.

Вариант 4