Ex. 2. Read the following passage carefully and then evaluate it as a paragraph of contrast by answering the questions that appear below.

1 When Flora Belle and Daisy Pied set out to landscape their two fifty-by-seventy foot back yard, they must have vowed most determinedly to make their gardens as different as two gardens could possibly be. 2 In the left rear corner of her lot Flora planted a Norwegian spruce; Daisy set out rambler roses on a trellis the neighbor boy put together. 3 In her right corner Flora put in peonies; Daisy had a Chinese elm. 4 Bordering three sides of her yard Daisy planted a privet hedge, the prickly kind. 5 Flora erected one of those Virginia fences with top and bottom rails and cross pieces between. 6 Up the center of the lawn, from hedge to house, Daisy had the mansion build a stone walk; Flora figured walking on the grass was what grass was intended for. 7 Flora’s final bit of landscaping was a summer sitting platform with roof and latticed sides for the morning glories to climb all over. 8 Daisy hung a hammock she could rest her body in. 9 By the way, that vow they must have taken back at the start of their fixing up was a thundering success. 10 Neither one has spoken to the other in five years come this fall.

 

vow – давать обет, клясться

spruce – ель

rambler roses – вьющиеся розы

trellis – шпалера

elm – вяз

privet hedge – забор из бирючины

fence – забор

mansion – большой дом

latticed - решетчатые

 

1 What is the basis for contrast?

2 What is the specific dominant quality, point, or issue?

3 Is the controlling idea satisfactory?

4 Is the paragraph unified?

5 What type of basic material is used?

6 What is the order of development?

7 Which sentences, if any, do not belong in the paragraph?

8 What does their presence or absence tell you about the effectiveness of this paragraph?

 

Ex. 3. Evaluate the following passage as a paragraph of contrast by applying to it the same questions asked in Ex. 2, above. The action of the story on which the paragraph is based is briefly this:

The car of the taxi driver Tarloff has been hit by the car of an important and irresponsible young man. When Tarloff insists that the law be called in, the young man hits Tarloff on the nose. Now the cabby is determined, in defense of his dignity, that the police be called. In his taxi are two passengers – a businessman and his wife Helen, en route to a dinner party. Tarloff asks the husband to go with him as a witness to the police station. The husband is waiting but Helen wants to proceed without further delay to the dinner party for which they are already late. To her the cabby is just a taxi driver of foreign extraction.

 

1 Irwin Shaw in his short story “Dry Rock” contrasts the intangible elements of principle and expediency in the characters of Tarloff and Helen. 2 Tarloff, an old weather-beaten Russian cab clad  (одетый) in a shabby coat, stands firm in his conversation that human dignity must be defended through justice. 3 Helen, a successful businessman’s wife on her way to a prominent society dinner, believes that principle may be subordinated in order to facilitate an end. 4 These fundamental beliefs influence the value that the characters place on time and motivate their actions. 5 Tarloff has little regard for time; Helen is a slave of it. 6 While Tarloff waits patiently and hopefully for a policeman, she nervously taps her foot. 7 The weary Russian wants to take the young man to the police station, press charges against him, endure a hearing, and suffer through a tedious trial. 8 Helen Fitzsimmons tries to get out of the situation from the start, protests taking time to go to the station, later at headquarters calls her friend every five minutes to check the process of the dinner, and swears at the thought of having to be a witness at a trial. 9 Ironically, the Russian cabby who has been in this country for only a short time is willing to exert the needed energy for enforcing justice; whereas the social-minded wife of an American businessman is too self-confident even to recognize the significance of the principle of human dignity which is at stake.

 

irresponsible – безответственный

сabby – таксист

dignity – достоинство

en route – по пути

witness – свидетель

intangible – неуловимый

expediency – целесообразность

cab – извозчик

justice – справедливость, правосудие

be subordinated – быть починенным

charges – обвинения

tedious trial – утомительный суд

be at stake – быть поставленным на карту

 

Ex. 4. Write a paragraph contrasting one of the following pairs:

1 Two coaches with very different methods

2 Two politicians with different views

3 Two elderly people with different attitudes toward aging

4 A small shop and a department store

   

ü Occasionally, because you wish to achieve a close relationship to two constituent parts of a subject, you may decide to combine comparison and contrast in the same paragraph.

 

 Ex. 5. Read the text and analyze the paragraph (structural components, method/s of paragraph development, paragraph unity and coherence, its type).

 

1 Both Pompey and Julius were first-rate generals supported by personal armies of professional soldiers, and both became contemptuous of the Senate that tried to curb them. 2 The egotistical Pompey began his career with brilliant conquests of Spain and the eastern kingdoms of Alexander, while the no less dashing Caesar thrilled the Roman populace with his nine-year conquest of Gaul. 3 Both realized that the republic had outlived its usefulness, but each wanted to be a dictator. 4 At first they worked together (with Crassus) in the First Triumvirate (60 b.c.) to force reforms upon the unwilling Senate. 5 But eventually Pompey took advantage of Caesar’s absence in Gaul to become sole dictator in Rome, whereupon Caesar with one of his legions crossed the Rubicon River, part of the northern boundary of Italy and accumulated a personal army for his march on Rome. 6 In the battles that followed, Pompey showed bad judgment and irresolution and was destroyed by the superior generalship of Caesar at Pharsalia (48 b.c.).

Robert Warnock and George K. Anderson  The Ancient foundations

сontemptuous – презрительный

curb – обуздать, сдерживать

conquest – завоевание

thrill – вызывать трепет

populace – простой народ

take advantage of – воспользоваться

cross –пересечь

accumulate – собрать

bad judgment – неправильное решение

irresolution – неуверенность, нерешительность