Блок 2. You are going to read a text on history. For questions 1-15, read the text below and decide which answer best fits each gap.

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Дистанционный тур

8-9 классы

Блок 1. You are going to read a text on astronomy. Choose a word from the list to complete each gap (1-10). Change its form where necessary to make a word/a group of words that fits in the gap. Use each word only once.Different aspects of form change are possible: active or passive voice; indicative, imperative or subjunctive mood; finite or non-finite forms (infinitive, gerund, participle); tense for finite forms or aspect for non-finite forms; full or bare infinitive, etc.

allow

bring

come

emit

go

observe

orbit

produce

provide

understand

 

Early people believed all objects 1. observed in the skies 2. orbited the Earth. Progressively, scientific observations proved that Earth and other planets 3.went around the Sun. The invention of the telescope around 1609 enabled scientists 4. to provide evidence of this hypothesis and 5. allowed the discovery of many more space objects. From the 1930s, astronomers 6. understood that some space objects 7. produced invisible radio waves, as well as or instead of light rays. Radio telescopes 8. brought about discovery of yet more objects in space, many invisible to ordinary optical telescopes, because they 9. emit no light. More kinds of rays were discovered 10. coming from space objects.

 

 

Ireland is an island off the west coast of Great Britain. It is divided into 1. four/three provinces and has two official languages, 2. Celtic/Gaelic and English. 3. Irish/English is the everyday language used by the vast majority of the population. The population is around 4. 5/7 million. Ireland has a 5. temperate/tropic climate; its winters are not very cold and summers not very warm. 6. Guinness/McEwan’s, the national drink, is a type of beer (stout) with a black 'body' and white 'head'. Politically, Ireland is divided into the 7. Republic/Kingdom of Ireland and 8. Southern/Northern Ireland (part of the United Kingdom).

The 9. Moor/Celtic religion had a crucial influence on Ireland long before the adoption of Christianity in the 10. 9th/5th century. For early events before that time, historians rely on literary sources such as the 11. sagas/chronicles, many of whose characters may represent only poetic imagination and in which the social or political circumstances portrayed reflect the fantasies of their authors rather than historical reality. Nevertheless, the traditions seem to indicate, during the early centuries AD, a process of political cohesion in Ireland through which the initial tuatha (a number of petty kingdoms, or clans) eventually became grouped into the 12. Four/Five Fifths (larger kingdoms).

Since the conversion to Roman Catholicism, with its ecclesiastical seat at 13. Armagh/Dublin, it has been the island's major religion. After the Reformation, Catholicism became closely associated with Irish resistance to British rule. But church support for nationalism has been ambivalent. After the Irish 14. Potato/Wheat Famine in the 1840s, there was a remarkable surge in devotional support of the Catholic church.

The 15. IRA ( Irish Republican Army/Irish Rebel Army ), known for its armed campaigns, fought for many years to keep the British out of the island, but eventually was constrained to pursue only peaceful means to achieve its objectives.