He was risking all his life, but now he was a millionaire. He retired and lived in one of the richest places in America in Palm Springs. And James said that when he was young he believed that his brother had missed all his opportunities in life, but now James thinks that he himself was the one who had missed his lucky chance.
On the one hand, whatever happens in our life, it happens on purpose. To my mind, all the opportunities that life offers are worthy to be taken notice of. It doesn’t mean that you should immediately jump at a chance and take a risk, UT at least take some opportunities into consideration.
Maybe due to this very chance you would be able to advance yourself and feel satisfaction of having used this opportunity. It is better to regret of something you have done, than something you haven’t. But on the other hand we should keep in mind that for every gambler there are 100 people who lose everything and finish up in misery.
2. What do you think of achieving success through marriage of convenience? (Mrs.. Gratin’s Hopes and Disappointments) 3. Talk about the relationships between the members of a family like those described by S. Managua (Mrs.
. Gratin’s Hopes and Disappointments) This story is about Mrs.. Granting and her family.
She had a husband and two daughters -? Kitty and Doris.
Mrs.. Granting was ambitious and rather cruel, she nagged her husband without mercy. She dominated him throughout all their married life. She had expected her husband to make a brilliant career. But he didn’t.
And Mrs.. Granting set her hopes on her daughters by arranging good marriages for them. She was sure that her elder daughter Kitty would have brilliant future. Kitty was very beautiful; she had dark eyes, lovely skin, curling hair and long eyelashes.
Kitty was successful. She had a lot of admires and many men were in love with her. But none was suitable for her.
When they proposed she refused all of them. Time passed and Kitty was getting older and she was still unmarried. Mrs.
. Granting was upset, she told Kitty that she missed her chance, but Kitty was enjoying herself and choosing the right men. Then Doris came out. She wasn’t so beautiful as Kitty. But she was younger and was engaged to the only son of a prosperous surgeon and was making quiet and suitable marriage.
Finally Kitty married a penniless young doctor, who took her to Hong Kong. So we can say that Mrs.. Gratin’s plans concerning her daughters marriages were not realized and took an unpredictable turn Mrs.
.
Granting remained unsatisfied and disappointed. 4. Talk about the frustrations and rewards of teaching as seen as by an American university teacher. Share your views on the problem.
(Why teach) First of all, teaching has its frustrations as well as rewards. Choosing teaching as a profession, you should have vocation for it. Otherwise, if job is not in keeping with your interests, you will feel no satisfaction from it and find yourself under stress. Teaching is a very demanding job. You’re bound to be revere before every lesson, because you never feel ready to teach.
Being a teacher requires full-commitment, an incredible responsibility, creativity and good qualification. Teaching is very rewarding work. It has a lot of advantages from the pace of academic calendar to the power to ask troubling questions and praise an attempted answer. When you teach, you have the freedom to make your own mistakes, to stimulate yourself and your students. As a teacher, you are your own boss. Well, I guess everyone would admit that teaching is a vocation and if you’re not cut out for it, it is better not to take it p: it is not an easy task as it may seem at first sight.
And the narrator thinks this way too.
He says that teaching is not at all easy for him, he adds that teaching is the most difficult of all the Ways he has attempted to earn his living: mechanic, carpenter, university administrator, writer. For him its a red eye, sweaty-palm, sinking-stomach profession. Red-eye, because he never feels ready to teach no matter how late at night he stays up to prepare.
Sweaty-palm, because he usually walks out an hour later convinced that he was even more boring than usual. But at the same time there are many rewards of teaching! 1 . He teaches because he likes the pace of academic calendar and teaching is built on change.
Even when the material he teaches is the same he changes, and, more important, his students change. 2. He also likes the freedom to make his own mistakes 3.
As a teacher he’s his own boss. 4. He likes to ask questions that students must struggle to answer. 5. His job gives him variety and challenge and, what is the most valuable, the opportunity to learn by himself. 6.
In conclusion, he admits that being a teacher is being there, being present at the creation, when the clay begins to breathe. So, being around people who are beginning to breathe, he occasionally finds himself catching his breath with them.
Having read this story, I realized that teaching is a very difficult profession to follow but worth to be taken up as a great deal of rewarding covers all the struggles. 7. There are sometimes events in childhood that may cause unpleasant or sad memories. Prove or disapprove this statement relying on the story “ Snowdrops”.
Children live in some other kind of world than adults. Everything is much simpler there, there much less difficulties, there are no much responsibility. All the things seem to be different for them, mean hillier are not aware yet of all the life as it is.
But living alongside with adults, they may get vision of real adult’s life just before they step in it themselves. Particularly, speaking about children’s attitude to teachers, we can say that children, especially small ones, look at them with great appreciation.
They think that their teacher would not forget about them and would be the best one whatever happens. In the story “ Snowdrops” we see that a young hero doesn’t notice that his teacher looks different because of her close friend’s death. He doesn’t notice that his teacher’s voice has become efferent and her appearance has changed by the influence of the tragedy which has stroke her.
In such a situation children usually don’t notice all the changes. And that’s a lot because of the efforts of the teacher who shouldn’t show his real feelings and stay sturdy and fulfill his duties, because he has a responsibility as a teacher and doesn’t have to display his real emotions. But some events give children an evidence of the real picture of the adult’s world.
Thus, the hero of “ Snowdrops” compares a minute, fragile flower to his teacher. He sees flowers blow in a sudden gust of the cold wind and trainmen again and he sees his teacher crying. By comparing this two creatures he can find them very much in common.
When I studied at the third form, our teacher Was offered a vacancy in a more high-status school, where her job was well-paid and she had better carrier prospects. We all knew why she had left us in the middle of the term and it made us understand that in spite of the teacher commitment to her pupils and her love to her job in general, money does matter.
8. Compare the different attitudes to women’s employment in medicine in the 19th century and nowadays (A letter) In the 9th century women’s employment in medicine was considered to be impossible as men thought that women can’t become equally educated physicians.
In other words, the idea of a woman doctor was felt to be immoral and shocking at that time. That’s why we can’t help admiring the main heroine (Elizabeth), who managed to become the first woman to gain the degree in modern medicine in the ASSAI. Her life Story is really exciting.
The reason why she decided to apply for a medical course was a very painful disease requiring surgical invention of a very good friend of her family. Although the thought of allowing medical career was so utterly repugnant to her, Elizabeth couldn’t refuse her friend’s request.
At that time when medical care was suggested to her she was experiencing an unusually strong struggle between attraction towards a highly educated man with whom she had been very intimately thrown, but his views were too narrow and rigid, I guess he couldn’t accept her choice. That’s why she had to sacrifice her love. She even saved a bunch of flowers that reminded her of him..
. The centuries passed. Women’s employment in medicine is no longer considered to be immoral and, what is ore, it has become a women dominated profession. So, women have proved that they deserve much more rights in our modern society.
. What do you know about different methods of combating infectious diseases in the past and at the present time? (Smallpox, AIDS Hysteria, Malaria, the Killer) Due to the development of medicine and rapid technological progress it has become possible to cure many serious diseases that used to be fatal. In the past people used different methods of combating highly contagious diseases. Smallpox, for instance.
Suspicion, fear and hostility have long thwarted tempts to control it. In 1885 affected children were forcibly removed from their parents and placed in isolation.
For thousands of years smallpox, an accepted fact of life that killed millions and often blinded and disfigured survivors, was dreaded as plague or cholera. Many laws were introduced to cope with epidemic, which were terribly cruel and ineffective. For example, they used force to remove people infected with plague, made plague barriers, used fires to purify public places or attacked and persecuted immigrants.
Over the centuries, spying, imprisonment and taking away civil rights have all en introduced by various legal means to prevent diseases from catching. AIDS is considered to be the most horrible malady of the 21 century.
Modern society realizes that laws will only be effective if they are built upon good information about all these serious diseases, and how they are transmitted. No isolations or limits of the supplies of condoms or the availability of sterile syringes for drug users will solve the problem.
Laws against particular minority groups are not the way out as well, as they are unjust, unfair and discriminating. That’s why control of all these diseases must depend on education. This is where the solution must lie, in educating communities, risk groups and every individual. 0. What impressed you in the story “ If only they could talk”? Frankly speaking, this story will make everybody’s hearts ache, while reading it . I felt really sorry for this old man, who was losing perhaps, the only true friend – his dog.
The dog went down with that fatal disease called cancer. Mr.. Dean had to build up all his strength to face that horrible news: his dog had to be put to sleep.
I imagined him standing in his cheerless, lonely room with faded pictures on the walls, with the frayed, grimy, curtains ND the broken armchair.
Of course for any loving owner the death Of pet is the most tragic, traumatic, and emotionally devastating experience. In this story we can feel how the old man is going through this. We can see all his pain through his actions and gestures.
The old man looked bewildered and his lips trembled, he did not speak, but ran his hand again and again over the dogs grey old muscle and the ears . It was very hard for him to lose his pet, but even harder to see him in pain. As people say, better to put your pet to sleep a day too early then a day too late.
Finally the old man agreed that he loud not have let him suffer. You know, the same story happened to my dog years ago. Unfortunately we didn’t have an opportunity to call a vet and couldn’t treat our dog.
We did have to put him to sleep but it was miserable to imagine that it wouldn’t follow me around the house. I couldn’t see when the doctor filled the syringe and gave an overdose of an anesthetic to my dog. By the time the injection was finished, the breathing had stopped. When my dog was out of pain I stood motionless except for clasping and unclasping of my hands.
It was a difficult moment for me.
There’s nothing more terrible and woeful when we lose our best friends, the most honest and true ones. 11 . What do you think of the competitive nature of sports and the feelings of rivalry involved? (Where have all the fans gone, The sporting spirit) Nearly all sports nowadays are competitive. Winning has become the most important thing.
People play to win, and the game has little meaning unless you do your utmost to win. You will play simply for the fun and exercise until the question of prestige arises and you feel that you and some larger until will be disguised if you lose.
And significant thing here is that many spectators and fans believe hat nation which is defeated in the contest will lose face. They seriously think that those competitions are tests of national virtue.
That’s why theirs is so much violence during sporting events. As soon as feeling of rivalry involved there are no rules anymore. People try to humiliate the opposing team by all possible means. They use foul language, make fights and the media plays here an important role.
It gives too much publicity to trouble-makers, and sometimes instead of banning the violence it encourages it.
Serious sport generally has nothing to do with fair play. It’s bound up with hatred, jealousy, zestfulness, disregard of all rules. The feeling of competition and rivalry excels everything. 12. Talk about different attitudes towards to sports In modern Western society.
For some people sport is a wonderful way to get rid of tension and to let off steam. It provides an opportunity for people to express themselves in a way that is not always possible in a daily routine life. Sport gives a challenge and can break down economic and social barriers. Many people overwhelmingly appreciate sport in their culture.
They think that spectator sports have a positive impact on society, that competitive sports alp children to learn valuable life lessons. Lots of people consider sports participation to help people get along with those from different racial or ethnic groups. Sports involvement is also thought to help people in the business world to get along better with people Of opposite sex. But nowadays sport has become too connected with business. Sometimes it seems less to do with enjoyment and more with making money.
More and more people come to think that sport can’t create good relationships between nations.
Some international competitions end in orgies of hatred because of nationalism and racism. Nearly all kinds of sport are competitive. People don’t enjoy the game as they try to do their utmost to win. For instance, on village field where it’s possible to play just for fun people don’t do that because the question of prestige arises.
At the international level sport sometimes looks like a mimic warfare. It’s horrible that nations can work themselves into funnies over these absurd contests and seriously believe that they are tests of national virtue.
Many people are convinced that professional sport has nothing to do with fair play because it’s bound up with hatred, lousy, boastfulness, disregard Of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. 13. Speak of the fall of man and its consequences for mankind as treated in the Bible (The fall of man).
Well, the fall of man started when Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate forbidden fruit; quite from this moment they started to know good and evil and this expressed itself in their realization that they were naked – they understood that there was some relation between a man and a woman.
It’s evident that Lord God didn’t like this disobedience, so he punished Adam and Eve. One of the consequences is hat God says that he will greatly multiply Eve’s sorrow in her conception; He’ll increase her trouble in pregnancy and her pain in giving birth; secondly, God entitled the man the master of the woman; thirdly, God said that in toil man shall eat of the ground all the days of his life.
