Олимпиадные задания (чтение). 10 класс

Reading Comprehension Form 10

Text 1. Read the text and decide if the following statements are true or false and for true sentences write + and for false sentences write – .

He was believed to have been born on April 16, 1889. There is some doubt whether April 16 is actually his birthday, and it is possible he was not born in 1889. There is also uncertainty about his birthplace: London or Fontainebleau, France. There is no doubt, however, as to his parentage: he was born to Charles Chaplin, and Hannah Harriette Hill , both Music Hall entertainers. His parents separated soon after his birth, leaving him in the care of his increasingly unstable mother.

In 1896, Chaplin's mother was unable to find work; Charlie and his older half-brother Sydney Chaplin had to be left in the workhouse at Lambeth, moving after several weeks to Hanwell School for Orphans and Destitute Children. His father died an alcoholic when Charlie was 12, and his mother suffered a mental breakdown, and was eventually admitted temporarily to the Cane Hill Asylum at Coulsdon (near Croydon). She died in 1928 in the United States, two years after coming to the States to live with Chaplin, who had reached a commercial success by then.

Charlie first took to the stage when, aged five, he performed in Music Hall in 1894, standing in for his mother. As a child, he was confined to a bed for weeks due to a serious illness, and, at night, his mother would sit at the window and act out what was going on outside. In 1900, aged 11, his brother helped him to get the role of a comic cat in the pantomime Cinderella at the London Hippodrome. In 1903 he appeared in 'Jim, A Romance of Cockayne', followed by his first regular job, as the newspaper boy Billy in Sherlock Holmes, a part he played into 1906. This was followed by Casey's 'Court Circus' variety show, and, the following year, he became a clown in Fred Karno's 'Fun Factory' slapstick comedy company.

According to immigration records, he arrived in the United States with the Karno troupe on October 2, 1912. In the Karno Company was Arthur Stanley Jefferson, who would later become known as Stan Laurel. Chaplin and Laurel shared a room in a boarding house. Stan Laurel returned to England but Chaplin remained in the United States. Chaplin's act was seen by film producer Mack Sennett, who hired him for his studio, the Keystone Film Company.

Reading Comprehension Form 10

Text 2. You are going to read an article about soap operas. Six sentences have been removed from the brochure. Choose from the sentences A-G the one which fits in each gap 1-6. There is one extra sentence you do not need to use.

Soap Operas

In the 1930s, when radio was still in its infancy, broadcasting stations in the USA wondered what type of programmes they should put on during the daytime. 1. ____________. Knowing that the majority of the audience would be women, the broadcasters decided that the women in the serials would be strong characters and the men weak. The serials were an instant success with listeners. As the radio stations were paid for by advertising, these programmes always carried advertisements and, since one of the most frequently advertised products was soap, the programmes became known as Soaps or Soap Operas.

2. ___________. The BBC had no interest in producing this type of programme but during the Second World War it was thought that the Americans should be shown how well the British people were standing up to the war. 3. ___________. It was called Front Line Family and showed how a typical English family, the Robinsons, were living during the war. 4.___________. The BBC were unwilling to do this but finally agreed and broadcast the programme in Britain, but changed the name to The Robinsons. The programme ran for six years.

Other soaps were introduced later. One of them told the life of a doctor’s family. The other, The Archers, showed the life in a country village. The original aim of The Archers was to inform farmers of new developments in agriculture. The serial began in 1951 and is still to be heard on five evenings every week.

Some attempts at soap opera began to appear on television in Britain in the mid-1950s, but it was not until 1961 that the first real soap opera appeared. 5. ___________. The serial, called Coronation Street, was about the lives of people living in a working-class street near Manchester. 6. ___________.

The BBC never managed to produce a really successful soap opera until 1984, when it introduced Eastenders. This programme is about the life in the area of the east end of London. For a time it had more viewers than Coronation Street and still rivals it as the most popular programme on the British television. There is a major difference between the two programmes. While Eastenders concentrates on rather depressing realism, Coronation Street, although having serious storylines, always contains a strong element of a comedy.

Reading Comprehension Form 10

Text 3. Read the text, for questions from 1-8, choose and circle the answer (A, B, C or D) which you think best fits according to the text.