Всероссийская олимпиада школьников по английскому языку. Школьный тур. 9-11 класс.

Всероссийская олимпиада школьников по английскому языку.

Школьный тур. 9-11 класс.

I. READING

Part1. You will read an article about a woman who writes children's books. For questions 1-8, choose the answer (A, B, C or D] which you think fits best according to the text.

Jane Hissey, creator of the 'Old Bear' stories

If anyone knows what makes a great children's book, it must be Sussex author and illustrator Jane Hissey. Her 'Old Bear' books have achieved classic status in a variety of formats: books for different ages, audio tapes, calendars and diaries.

I caught up with Jane at her home in the East Sussex countryside and asked her what she thinks is the secret of a classic children's book. 'That's a difficult one. I suppose it's got to be relevant to the child's stage of development - for young children, pictures on a page that are familiar, for older children, an experience. The book should be familiar, but hold some surprises too, in order to maintain the interest. It must inspire and delight, but there is also an element of the matter-of-fact, the things that happen every day.'

Jane was born in Norwich and studied design and illustration at Brighton College, after which she taught art to secondary school students. She married a graphic designer and settled in East Sussex. After the birth of her first child, Owen (who is now 18), she gave up teaching and worked on her own artwork, drawing pictures of teddy bears and designing greeting cards. An editor from a publishing company saw her work and invited Jane to do a children's book. After the birth of her second child, Alison (who is now 14), she set to work.

'Old Bear', the leader of the gang, was Jane's childhood teddy and she still loves him. 'I get the feeling he's writing his own words. I look back at the first book I wrote and realise he's lost a lot of his fur. That's partly because I pin him in front of me in order to draw him. Like the other toys, he gets stuck on little clamps. All the toys have aged more than I show in my drawings; I'm able to keep them looking youthful.'

Over the years, from the first 'Old Bear' book in 1988, her children have made a huge contribution - not least in terms of plot. 'I used to give my children the toys to play with - and they had tea parties and so on. One of my bear characters, 'Little Bear', is the same age as Ralph, my youngest, who's seven now. All the children have been involved and, in years to come, they will realise how much.'

Jane's technique is very interesting. Unlike many other children's illustrators, she works in coloured pencils, which makes her work immediately accessible to children because it's the medium most familiar to them. She likes to draw the original about four times larger than it appears in the book. Because they are eventually reduced in size, the drawings then look more dense, with a deeper texture. 'I build up layers and layers of colour,' she explains, 'so the effect is not wishy-washy. There's a depth of colour and you can see the other colours underneath.' With such a laborious, meticulous method of working, a single book takes a year to write and illustrate. How, I asked her, does this work fit in with the demands of a large family and home? She told me it was a combination of teamwork and good planning. 'My husband is also an illustrator, so we both work from home and we can juggle things so that one of us is always there.' (line 30)

Despite such phenomenal success in the book world, Jane remains very down-to-earth about her collection of toys. But, she admits she would miss them if she suddenly had no contact with them. 'I hope I'll know when people are getting fed up with the characters. If ever they did, I think I'd go on drawing them for fun. My own children have been very useful to me in my work, but as they are older now, I'll just have to hope that other people's children can inspire me.'

1. According to Jane, a successful children's book

A      contains material that is unexpected.

B      should offer an escape from everyday life.

C      does not lose its attraction as children get older.

D      is set in a place which is known to its readers.

2. Jane first became involved in book writing because

A      she got in touch with an editor.

B      her artwork attracted professional attention.

C      her husband encouraged her to try.

D     she wrote stories for her own children.

3 .What does Jane say about her teddy bear illustrations in paragraph 4?

A      They have improved over time.

B      She uses real models to work from.

C      They have been pinned up around the house.

D      She has had difficulty keeping them up-to-date.

4 .How did Jane's children assist her in her work?

A      by allowing her to concentrate on her work

B      by telling her what they thought of her stories

C      by suggesting characters for her stories

D     by giving her ideas for her stories

5. According to the writer, Jane's books take a long time to produce because

A      the pages have to be so large.

B      the colouring is a lengthy process.

C       she redoes so many of her drawings.

D      she colours each page to suit the mood of the story.

6 . When Jane says 'we can juggle things' (lines30), she means that she and her husband can

A      find someone to look after their children.

B      afford to turn down work.

C      find space in the home to work.

D      organise their daily schedules.

7.  How does Jane feel about her future work?

A      uncertain

B      excited

C      encouraged

D      depressed

8 . What do we learn from the article as a whole about Jane's attitude to her books?

A      She is interested in experimenting with different drawing techniques.

B      She regards her characters simply as a commercial project.

C      She is fond of the toys that she draws regularly.

D      She is bored with writing about bears all the time.

Part2. You are going to read an article about sending scientific expeditions to the Moon. Seven sentences have been removed from the article. Choose from the sentences A-H the one which fits each gap (9-15). There is one extra sentence which you do not need to use.

Getting back on the Moon

Several decades after the Apollo 77 Moon landing, scientists want another trip.

One of the most dramatic events in human history took place in 1969. Dressed in his space suit and equipped with an oxygen backpack, a walkie-talkie, a camera and a special visor to block out the fierce light of the sun, the astronaut Neil Armstrong stepped from the Eagle lunar module out onto the Moon. He was soon joined by Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin. The two men collected rock samples and took photographs before returning to the Apollo spacecraft.

After several decades, the excitement surrounding mankind's first visit to another world has not decreased.

 (9)   Moreover, the snapshot of a sapphire-blue Earth, as seen from the Apollo spacecraft, remains a powerful symbol of space exploration.

However, some scientists claim that, despite twelve men having walked on the Moon in six missions between 1969 and 1972, basic questions about it remain unanswered. For example, is there really water there? What is the 'far side' like? How did the Moon come to orbit the Earth? (10)    Human beings, they say, would be better at gathering information and samples than unmanned spacecraft.

David Heather, a lunar researcher from London, agrees that such questions could be answered more easily if people were sent up rather than robots. He thinks that people are more intelligent and useful. (11)       

The researcher, who is studying data from unmanned spacecraft, believes that because scientists have got some sample material from the Moon, most people consider that it is unnecessary to go back there. He insists, however, that a lot of the material we have does not give a good idea of what all parts of the Moon are like. I (12)    As a result, there are very few pieces of rock from the highland regions and insufficient material from the lunar seas.

(13)     That is another reason why people like David Heather would like to see more scientists up there, working with more advanced equipment. A lot more could be done today.

There are problems, however, the main one being that it is incredibly expensive to send humans to the Moon. (14)     There is only so much money to go round. There would be arguments about the best use of resources between people who want to go to the Moon, people who want to build telescopes on Earth and people who want to build telescopes in space. Each group would argue that their project is the most important and urgent undertaking.

There is another problem to be faced. (15)     For example, astronauts on the far side of the Moon, which is invisible to Earth, would be out of contact. A lot of people would oppose manned missions for that reason alone.

A All the Apollo missions had to land near the Moon's equator, so the samples have come from a limited area.

B It is easy to forget, too, that the technology of the early lunar missions was the technology of the 1960s.

C They are supposed to do the kind of tasks that astronauts cannot do.

D The most mysterious areas of the Moon are probably the most dangerous.

E Now, some believe that manned missions should begin again.

F The human footprints on the lunar surface seem as incredible now as they did in the 1960s.

G For that reason, some people might oppose any plans for new missions.

H They can make quick decisions about what they should collect and examine.

Part3. Read the text. The text has 5 sections. For texts 15-20, choose the correct heading A-H from the list of headings below. There is three extra headings which you do not need to use.

List of headings:

A. Zero ending                        E. Preference or disadvantage

B. German is more difficult      F. Introduction

C. Simplicity of form               G. Complex sentence

D. Words that can deceive        H. Spelling

16.    There is almost no declension and no conjugation in the English language, which makes it much easier for someone who is learning the language to form simple sentences that are grammatically correct. The example of conjugation is the verb “be” that has forms “I am”, “you, we, they are” and “he, she, it is.”

17.    In English all nouns are spelled with small letters. Exceptions are: proper names, the days of the week, the personal pronoun “I”, the names of the months, titles, positions and greetings such as Mr, Mrs, Dr, Director of Marketing, etc.

18.    Your learning efforts will be more effective if you have an overview of the language you are working with. That’s why we have put together a number of features characterizing the English language. In some aspects we compare English against German to better illustrate - you might want to compare these features with your mother tongue.

19.    In English we have “You”, and there is no “Du” or “Sie” form - an idiomatic pitfall that causes non-Germans as much trouble as the appropriate use of the formal “Sie” and the sociable “Du” when addressing people. There are 19 German equivalents to the possessive adjective “your”. There is only one definite article in the English language whereas in German there are three.

20.    The English language contains a lot of homophones. These are words that have the same pronunciation but are spelled differently. Of course, they have different meanings. Examples: meet/meat, by/buy/bye, son/sun, waste/waist, through/threw, write/right, our/hour, here/hear.

II. USE OF ENGLISH

Part 1.For items 1-15, read the text and look carefully at each line. Some of the lines are correct, and some have a word which should not be there. If a line is correct, put a tick (Ö) by it. If a line has a word which should not be there, write the word at the end of the line. There are two examples at the beginning (0) and (00).

Getting the school bus

Part2. For items 16-25, read the text and fill only ONE word in each gap.

A scientist’s view

      I work at a base on Antarctica. Although I hate (16)____________far away from my family, I don't regret coming here. If I hadn't taken this job, I wouldn't (17)_______had the chance to visit one of the strangest places on Earth. It's (18)_____________a great experience that every day I wake up and think, I’m so lucky to be here!'

My family are all thousands of miles away, in the UK. None of them can visit me but we stay in touch by e-mail. My parents write (19)_______me every day! I love getting their e-mails. Of course, sometimes I (20)_______I was back home, but you can't be in two places at the same time, (21)______you?

     There are fifteen of us here at the base, but I mainly work with one other scientist, called Dave. Both (22)_____us get on well, which is good. Everyone at the base has their own bedroom. My room is tiny- it's not much bigger (23)_____ cupboard! It's (24)_____small that I can stand in the middle and touch all the walls! I've got everything I need, but if my parents send me some more warm socks,
I (25)_____ be very happy!

Part3. For questions 26-30 look at this gender-biased advertisement for an airline. Change the underlined words into more neutral equivalents to make the advertisement politically correct. 

Example:  0. businessman – business person

26.businessman- b_______________  p_________________

27. he –  t__________

28. air hostesses –  f_______  a_____________

29. wife –  s_________

30. American Indian – N________    A__________

III. WRITING

Comment on the following statement.

Some students think the best teacher is someone who is very knowledgeable about the subject matter, while others believe that it is more important for a teacher to make teaching enjoyable and fun for students.

What is your opinion? What qualities are more important for a teacher?

Write 100-130 words.

Use the following plan:

-   make an introduction (state the problem)

-   express your personal opinion and give reasons for it

-   give arguments for the other point of view and explain why you don't agree with it

-   draw a conclusion

Критерии оценивания конкурсов

1. Reading (чтение) -20 баллов (за каждый правильный ответ дается 1 балл, неправильный или отсутствие ответа 0 баллов). Проверяется по ключам.

2. Use of English (лексико-грамматический тест) - 30 баллов (за каждый правильный ответ дается 1 балл, неправильный или отсутствие ответа 0 баллов). Проверяется по ключам.

3. Writing (письмо) - 20 баллов (оценивается по Критериям оценивания конкурса письменной речи)

Для каждого участника полученные баллы за каждый конкурс суммируются.  

1.         Reading

2.         Use of English

3.         Writing