Firefighter speaks after 10 years of being mute & brain damaged

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — Nearly 9 1/2 years after a firefighter was left brain-damaged and mostly mute during a 1995 roof collapse, he did something that shocked his family and doctors: He asked for his wife. Staff members of the nursing home where Donald Herbert has lived for more than seven years raced to get Linda Herbert on the telephone.

It was the first of many conversations the patient had with his wife, four sons and other family and friends Saturday during a 14-hour stretch, Herbert’s uncle Simon Manka said. “How long have I been away? ” Herbert asked. “We told him almost 10 years, ” the uncle said. “He thought it was only three months.”

Herbert, who will turn 44 Saturday, was fighting a house fire Dec. 29, 1995, when the roof collapsed, burying him under debris. After going without air for several minutes, Herbert was comatose for 2 1/2 months and has undergone therapy ever since.

News accounts in the days and years after his injury describe Herbert as blind and with little, if any, memory. Video shows him receiving physical therapy but apparently unable to communicate and with little awareness of his surroundings.

Manka declined Monday to discuss his nephew’s current condition, or whether the apparent progress was continuing this week. The family was seeking privacy while doctors evaluated Herbert, he said. “He’s resting comfortably, ” the uncle said.

As word of Herbert’s progress spread, a steady stream of visitors arrived at the Father Baker Manor nursing home in this Buffalo suburb. “He stayed up ‘til early morning talking with his boys and catching up on what they’ve been doing over the last several years, ” firefighter Anthony Liberatore told WIVB-TV, Herbert’s sons were 14, 13, 11 and 3 when he was injured.

Staff members at the nursing facility recognized the change in Herbert, Manka said, when they heard him speaking and “making specific requests.” “The word of the day was 'amazing, ’” he said.

Dr. Rose Lynn Sherr of New York University Medical Center said when patients recover from brain injuries, they usually do so within two or three years. “It’s almost unheard of after 10 years, ” she said, “but sometimes things do happen and people suddenly improve and we don’t understand why.”

Manka said visitors let Herbert set the pace of the conversations and did not bring up the fire in which he was injured. “The extent and duration of his recovery is not known at this time, ” Manka said. “However we can tell you he did recognize several family members and friends and did call them by name.”

There have been a few other widely publicized examples of brain-damage patients showing sudden improvement after a number of years. In 2003, an Arkansas man, Terry Wallis, returned to consciousness 19 years after he was injured in a car accident, stunning his mother by saying “Mom” and then asking for a Pepsi. His brain function remained limited, his family said months later.

Tennessee police officer Gary Dockery, who was brain damaged in a 1988 shooting, began speaking to his family one day in 1996, telling jokes and recounting annual winter camping trips. But after 18 hours, he never repeated the unbridled conversation of that day, though he remained more alert than he had been. He died the following year of a blood clot on his lung.

https://www.mswm.org/amazing_pets_stories/humans/humansamazingliumans.storiesan)azinghumans.index.htm

0 Donald Herbert spoke with Linda Herbert just after a roof collapsed in 1995. (F)

3 There was evidence that Herbert could not talk, see and remember what had happened to him.

4 Father Baker is one of Herbert’s visitors who spread the word about his progress.

5 Though amazed, the doctors know some reasons to explain improvement of his condition.

6 Herbert’s uncle gave the Associated Press journalist some facts of his nephew’s recovery.

7 Herbert’s story is quite rare, but it is not a single case of a patient’s coming to oneself after a long period in a coma.

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The internet is changing the way the human brain works, researchers have found. It is improving people’s ability to make snap decisions and filter large amounts of information — but at the cost of subtle skills such as picking up the nuances of facial expression.

Overall, a new study concludes, the brains of those tested were markedly more active when carrying out internet searches than when reading books.

However, the stimulation was concentrated in the areas that control decision-making and complex reasoning. Areas linked to abstract thinking and empathy showed virtually no increase in stimulation.

Gary Small, director of the memory and ageing research centre at the University of California, Los Angeles, who carried out the research, said that, while computers have marked benefits in stimulating the brain, their use needed to be moderated.

There was a possibility, he argued, that the saturation use of digital technology could lead to long-term evolutionary change.

“Young people are growing up immersed in this technology and their brains are more malleable, more plastic and changing than with older brains, ” said Small.

“The next generation, as [Charles] Darwin suggests, will adapt to this environment. Those who become really good at technology will have a survival advantage — they will have a higher level of economic success and their progeny will be better off.”

Small is to publish his findings in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry. He has set out his arguments in more depth in a new book, iBrain.

His claims reignite the debate about the effects of technology on the brain. Some scientists have blamed computer games for the growth of attention deficit disorder among children.

Small scanned the brains of 24 volunteers. He found that browsing websites stimulated the frontal, temporal and cingulate areas of the brain, which control complex reasoning. Older users and those who had not previously tried the internet all showed similar effects.

Baroness Greenfield, director of the Royal Institution and author of ID: The Quest for Identity in the 21st Century, said: “The hypothesis in iBrain is that natural selection will weed out people with brains that are more emotional or more capable of abstract thought and that we will be left with people who are more autistic in tendency. I would agree.”

However, Igor Aleksander, emeritus professor of neural systems engineering at Imperial College London, said: “It may be that by using the internet you stimulate different parts of the brain. However, it would be difficult to show this could not be achieved through other situations.”

0 What approach was taken in the recent research to prove the influence of the internet on the human brain?

1 According to the text, which of the following is true of the way the internet may improve the human brain?

3 Why does the author mention the fact that some scientists have blamed computer games for the growth of attention deficit disorder among children?

4 What does Small mean predicting that people will be “more autistic in tendency” (line 29)?

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Thousands of students participate at school in events and projects that fundraise to help the less-fortunate in the developing world. From national UNICEF-sponsored programmes to projects put on by a single individual, young Canadians are working to make a difference in the lives of millions of poor, sick or abused men, women and children. Here is one young Canadian’s experience with a 30-Hour Famine school fundraiser...

One of the best memories I have from high school was participating in a WorldVision 30-Hour Famine fundraiser. I attended high school in a small village in New Brunswick named Plaster Rock. It’s one of those towns where everyone knows everyone. So something like the 30-Hour Famine is going to draw a lot of attention in a small village like that. And did it ever. Some parents were mad because they didn’t want their children to go that long without food so they weren’t even allowed to participate.

I vividly remember how much fun we had. After handing in our sponsor sheets with the donations that had been pledged by our family, neighbours and friends, we had a meeting in the school lobby to officially start “the fast”. Everyone who wasn’t participating was eating around us just to rub it in our faces. But we didn’t care. We knew it was all for a good cause.

That night there was a Much Music video dance at the high school and everyone doing the famine went because we weren’t allowed to leave the school property. Time flew by because everyone was so busy dancing and having a good time socializing with each other. It was a typical party. The boys got into fights and tried to show off for the girls by hitting each other. Girls were breaking up with their boyfriends and hooking up with other guys. It’s funny how cranky some people get when they have empty stomachs. But it was also a great way to get to know people better and to make new friendships with others sharing the experience.

After the dance, the student council had arranged for us to watch movies in the lecture theatre all night. My group of friends lay on the gymnastic mats on the floor and watched sappy chick flicks. And playing hide and seek in an old, dark school was fun too. No one seemed to care they were going without food until 3 a.m. came around.

When you’re on the famine, you are only allowed to drink juice and water. But nothing with a lot of nutritious value. Nobody seemed to mind they had gone all day without food.

The next morning everyone woke up to screaming and hollering. The boys had decided to throw cold water on us. How typical is that. The rest of the 30 hours was spent watching movies and running around the school. Everyone by this point was super hungry but we didn’t care. We had too much fun doing the Famine to care. Just as everyone was getting ready to leave, student council brought in party pizzas.

Everyone ran to the pizzas which of course lasted about five minutes. The famine was labeled a huge success and everyone had lots to talk about at school that Monday morning.

0 Fundraising initiatives can be put forward by anyone who wants to help the less- fortunate people.(T)

1 Everyone in the town approved of the pupils’ staying without food as it was all for a good cause.

2 The participants of the event had donated some cash to the developing world before they officially started the famine.

3 Being committed to the idea, those who were on the famine were not tempted by those who were eating around them.

4 When at a dance party, the kids on the famine were eccentric yet open to enjoyment and new experience.

5 Despite staying without food for 30 hours, the high school pupils did not mind doing the famine longer.

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In this world of the online communities and other adventures to discover, it is natural for all the kids to be interested in getting on the bandwagon. It is but natural for them to be interested in knowing about what goes on in the World Wide Web. But for those who are at the tender age of below their teens, it is important to be cautious before they get going! Kids of the under 12 age should be discovering this interesting internet world of online communities and international chatting under parental guidance and instructions.

It is a learning experience for sure to be chatting with old friends and making new ones. But some times you may fall in the wrong trap. You may fall in the hands of bad guys or perverts who are not there for some healthy chatting but for other mean purposes. So what is it that, you kids should do to make sure you are in a safe environment and having some healthy fun while chatting with friends.

Tell your parents whatever you are doing online. This is very important and will help in your parents guiding you to the good chatting sites.

Chat with kids your age and not adults. Make sure that you do not give away too much information to the other kids. Discuss the information to be given away before hand with your parents.

Try and chat about educational things like science projects, interactive learning etc. you could also chat about the culture of your friend if he/she is from another country.

Keep a look out and if suspicious about anything then inform your parents instantly.

Never make any other contact except for on the net. Do not give away phone numbers etc without your parents verifying the other child’s credentials.

Never receive any obscene videos or pictures from others and if they try to entice you in to these things, inform your parents and stop chatting with them.

Never make chatting a habit. It should be a healthy hobby that should transpire in to a learning experience for you.

Chat within limits set by your parents. Don’t lie to them and chat beyond the time constraints set by them.

So make safe and healthy chatting a part of your chatting routine and you will see that you enjoy it. Overdoing anything is bad!

1 In stating that kids are “interested in getting on the bandwagon” (line 2), the author means that ______.

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Erin Crocker first got behind the wheel of a car at the age of six. Even though it was a go-cart, it was still a motorized vehicle! The following year, she started racing quarter-midgets—cars scaled down to one-quarter the size of midget race cars—and she hasn’t taken her foot off the accelerator since.

Erin, 27, became only the 11th female driver to compete in the NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing) Busch Series, considered the “minor leagues” to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, the highest level of professional competition and home to the Daytona 500. The Wilbraham, Mass, native also races in the NASCAR Truck Series, which features pickup trucks. Currently, Erin is one of two women racing in NASCAR where speeds can reach 190 M.P.H. and races are won by milliseconds. But being a pioneer isn’t new to Erin; she has been competing in the male-dominated sport of racing since she was seven. “My father was into cars and had my older brothers involved in racing, ” she said. “I loved sports and always wanted to be outside, so I just sort of got involved too.”

Get involved she did. After graduating from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with an engineering degree in 2003, Erin became the first woman to qualify for the Knoxville Nationals (driving a 410 sprint car) and was named the 2003 Knoxville Nationals Rookie of the Year. Most recently, she has become the first woman to join the Evernham Motorsports driver development program which positions her to ascend to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. “I’m living my dream right now, ” Erin said. “I worked really hard to get here, but this opportunity (with Evernham) is the greatest.”

While Erin was growing up, cars weren’t the only things that kept her busy. Between races, she found time to play on her high school soccer, tennis and lacrosse varsity teams as well as be a member of the ski team.

For girls interested in racing, Erin only offers words of encouragement. “There are a lot of opportunities for women in the sport right now. Many companies are hoping they can be on board when the first woman wins a race.” (In NASCAR, racers need the help of corporate sponsors to pay for their cars, equipment, crew, etc.)

While Erin’s got her eye on the future, she’s also focused on the here and now. “I want to get to the next level, which is obviously the Sprint Cup Series, but as of now, I am definitely living my dream and there really aren’t too many people who can say that.”

Read the text below. Match choices (A-G) to (1-4). There are two choices you do not need to use. Write your answers on the separate answer sheet. An example (0) has been done for you.

C Hold one half, peel side down, in your cupped hand or place on a cutting board.

G Score pulp in a crosshatch pattern, down to, but not through the peel (repeat with other half).

Read the text below. For (1-5) choose T if the statement is true according to the text, F if it is false. Write your answers on the separate answer sheet. An example (0) has been done for you.

Tim Cridland, also known as Zamora The Torture King or The Human Pincushion, made his debut years ago with Jim Rose’s Circus Sideshow and has since appeared on Ripley’s Believe it or Not and Real TV. He is a man of many strange talents.

At a young age, Cridland became extremely interested in sideshows and the unusual stunts performed at them. Through books he learned about snake charmers and sword swallowers and he decided it was something he wanted to pursue.

“It was an ongoing interest of mine that kept growing bigger and bigger, ” he said. Tim’s first side show accomplishment was fire eating. That was a feat he mastered at the young age of 15.

“I thought that was pretty cool, ” said Cridland, “I thought that was something I’d like to see. But nobody was doing it, especially in the small town I lived in.” So he decided to learn the ropes himself. It was a slow process that took many years of studying mediation rituals and self-hypnosis to become the torture guru he is today.

“I’ve been doing fire eating the longest, ” he says. “Then putting the skewers just through the skin on the fore arms, then it just went up from there.”

Zamora’s signature act is piercing his flesh with meat skewers. At the show I attended in Toronto, one skewer went through the arm and another went in his mouth, under his tongue and out the bottom of his chin. According to The Torture King, this act has made several people faint, including members of other sideshows. At different shows he pierces different parts of his body, although his arms and face seem to be the most common. For the Guinness Book of Records, he had 106 pins in his body at once. “I could have done twice as many, ” he claims, “but it wasn’t really for the record, it was just an excuse to do fun stuff on TV.”

Because of his extensive studies and years of practice, Cridland is fully in tune with his body. He knows exactly where to put the skewers when piercing himself to produce the least amount of blood possible. Through self-hypnosis he has also learned to ignore the pain.

“There is nothing abnormal about me physically, ” said The Torture King. “Everything I’ve done, I’ve trained myself to do. I’d say what I’m doing is demonstrating some kind of extreme examples of what you can do with your mind and combining that with your body. You could take the same techniques I use to overcome pain and use them in your own life to inspire you to persevere against the pains in life we all have to deal with.”

0 Tim Cridland started developing his strange talent from practicing snake charming and sword swallowing.

5 He shows how he overcomes pain to inspire other people to try repeating his tricks.

Read the text below. Choose from (A-H) the one which best fits each of (1-5). There are two choices you do not need to use. Write your answers on the separate answer sheet. An example (0) has been done for you.

I have lived in this country for ten years already. So I decided it was time to apply for citizenship. (0) A It was to check my language skills and knowledge of the U.K. I had to buy a special book to find out a vast spectrum of novelties, such as children’s pocket money, how Christmas is celebrated and the structure of the government and the Royal Family.

(1) __________________. The road where the Learning Centre is (where you take the exam) has two parts, separated by a huge roundabout, and traps such as narrow one-way lanes. (2) _____________________.

I — blonde, white, of Eastern European origin and looks - was under the keen gaze of groups of men of various ethnic origins and ages occupying pavements. (3) _________________. I could feel the tension — I was an intruder, looking for something.

Close to tears, I finally found the place. (4) _______________________. There was no trace of life within.

I wanted very much to prove I can speak English well and had absorbed the book. (5) ____________________. Dispirited, I gave up.

We’re al! concerned about the wellbeing of everybody: looking, thinking, cooking and praying differently. Why doesn’t it work the other way?

В It was tightly secured with shutters, its signs badly damaged and surrounded by litter.

Read the text below. Match choices (А-I) to (1-6). There are two choices you do not need to use. Write your answers on the separate answer sheet. An example (0) has been done for you.

Many times I have helped other fellow students to cheat from my examination paper and at the end when I saw that they had a good mark, I was very happy, even if you call it cheating! I have also cheated from my friend’s paper. Nothing can be done! Students are clever enough to find new ways to overcome the obstacles that [others] are trying to impose upon them.

The people who say cheating is good sometimes are the ones who know that it is never good. They are just trying to justify themselves so that they do not feel guilty. There are a lot of cheaters out there and they are making it hard for other people to do well. If you don’t cheat you are making life easier for the other non-cheaters. I mean if only one person in your class cheated, they probably wouldn’t do so well.

I think that cheating is not a big problem, but it can harm your future! Because “once a cheater, always a cheater” and then you learn nothing. You will have difficulty in the examination test... Consequently, you don’t go to a university! So the best thing to do is to study hard!

I was doing my English test, when my friend asked me to exchange the tests. It was my first time cheating, so we tried, but we made a huge mistake. He took the first page of the test and I took the second. When the teacher turned to see what was going on, he saw each of us holding one page of the test. We both went to the principal’s office and got a zero. Yeah, I learned with my mistakes...

I think that cheating is bad, but truthfully everyone has tried it in some shape or form in their life.

I personally have and sometimes I am not successful, but most the times I am. Cheating is wrong: if you feel you have to hide and be secretive about something, it is wrong. This does not stop people from cheating. Some people make a job cheating people out of money and other things.

Well, I don’t think that the teachers should even care of a boy or girl who cheats on a test. They are just hurting themselves. But I do not think it is right for a teacher to say she has seen someone cheating because they have happened to talk. Some teachers just need to sit and get off our backs.

I think that cheating is common in schools and very understandable. This is because teachers give too much work and a lot of hard tests that force you into cheating. Therefore I think that teachers should STOP giving so much work and tests. Cheating is cool with me. I also think that teachers and people who work at school are bad at catching cheaters and that cheating is completely necessary at this current time.:) CHEAT ON!

Read the following text. For (1-7) choose T if the statement is true according to the text, F if it is false. Write your answers on the separate answer sheet. An example (0) has been done for you.

You may notice that whenever you’re at work your eyes get watery, your nose or throat get irritated, your skin becomes dry or itchy. You start to get a headache. Fatigue sets in. It’s hard to concentrate. Colleagues complain of similar symptoms. Yet, an odd thing happens: soon after you leave the building you feel relief.

All are indicators of “sick building syndrome” (SBS). That’s a scary-sounding, catch-all term, which simply describes situations in which building occupants experience acute health and comfort effects that seem linked to time spent in a building, but no specific illness or cause can be identified, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. Complaints may come from workers in one specific room or zone, or they may come from employees throughout a building. One report cited by EPA says up to 30 percent of new and remodeled buildings worldwide may prompt excessive complaints related to lousy indoor air quality.

“Sick building syndrome probably originated as a result of the oil embargoes that began in the mid- 1970s, ” reports the journal Archives of Environmental Health. Buildings erected after that increasingly were built “tight” - with windows that couldn’t open, for instance - to conserve energy. An unexpected consequence: Fungi became trapped indoors, along with chemicals released from cleaning products, ozone from photocopiers, pesticides sprayed by the exterminator, fumes from new carpets, and secondhand cigarette smoke drifting indoors from the ventilation system.

Often, according to the EPA, problems trace to a building being operated or maintained in a manner that is inconsistent with its original design or operating procedures. Sometimes indoor air problems trace to poor building design or occupant activities.

There’s some thought that no one really knows why people get sick; maybe it isn’t the air, but some other reason, like maybe sitting too long in front of a computer (“visual display unit” or “VDU”). One study found increased sick-building symptoms when working at a VDU at least seven hours a day; other studies found an effect after fewer hours, according to the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

To figure out what’s going on, building managers can conduct a walk-through survey to look for obvious issues such as poor cleaning, water damage or overcrowding, then may distribute a questionnaire to employees to get a sense of the extent of the problem.

Solutions can be wide-ranging, including storing paint only in well-ventilated areas and letting new carpets off-gas their airborne pollutants before anyone goes inside the building.

1 Only people who permanently stay in certain parts of the building suffer from SBS.

3 Using low-power technologies in construction blocked fresh air inflow to the building.

5 SBS cannot be exclusively explained by the mistakes of the building’s designers.

ЗАВДАННЯ 12. Match choices (A-H) to (1-5). There are two choices you do not need to use.

When teens drink or do other forbidden things, adults often say we aren’t thinking about the risks of unsafe behaviour. But a recent study shows that teens think things through far more than people realize. I wanted to know more, so I decided to interview Dr. Valerie Reyna, a Cornell University professor. David Schmutzer

Dr. Valerie Reyna: The conventional wisdom has been that kids do these activities because they think they’re invulnerable and they’re going to live forever. The research has shown that’s not the case. In fact, teens think that they’re more vulnerable than adults think they are.

Teens actually take longer than adults to think about the risks and benefits of doing something dangerous They even overestimate their risk. But then they decide the benefits — like peer acceptance — outweigh the risks. That’s why they engage in the risky behaviour.

Reyna: We used to think that you got to be an adult and you began to calculate risks more. But now the evidence suggests that you calculate less as you get older, and that’s why you don’t take risks.

The theory is that adults don’t need to go into the precise details and weigh them to make a decision. Instead, they base their decisions on their bottom-line “gist” of the situation.

Reyna: There are certain situations that adults look at and they say, “Wow, we know how this situation is going to turn out before we hear the rest of the story.” For young people without experience, what happens can be a surprise.

For example, let’s say it’s prom night and some kids are renting a hotel room, there’s a lot of drinking going on, and there’s no adult supervision. Most adults won’t be surprised that there might be some behaviour problems in that situation: an adult immediately gets the gist. The bottom-line decision is that you don’t get into that situation. If you’re not in that situation, nothing bad will happen to you.

Reyna: There are teens who are thrill seekers and others who are more risk-averse and that continues into adulthood. Some teens appear to mature faster, which means they’re getting the “gist” sooner.

Why do some teens get the gist sooner than others? We don’t know, but as you get more experience, you learn more about risky behaviour and your thinking changes. Also, parents are often cited as the most important role models in a child’s life.

Reyna: Believe it or not, but teens overestimate the risk of risky behaviours. The teens surveyed didn’t think they were immortal. In fact, some had a very fatalistic attitude [meaning they think they are powerless to change the future].

What’s the first thing public health officials do when they’re trying to educate teens? They tell teens what the risks are because they want to inform them. It’s very well intentioned, but it could backfire. In fact, if you tell a teen the risk is X and it turns out it’s lower than they thought it was, you could make them more likely to engage in risky behaviour.

Reyna: Examine your values carefully and think about how your everyday life connects to those values. Instead of thinking of values as an abstraction, think about how you would apply them to your encounters with people in concrete situations.

Read the texts below. Match choices (A-H) to (1-5). There are two choices you do not need to use. Write your answers on the separate answer sheet. An example (0) has been done for you.

Good time management skills can help students increase their grades and improve their overall school work performance. By learning to complete assignments on time every time, students will have a better classroom experience. Discover which tips are right for you.

Do you find yourself rushing to complete your homework assignment at the last moment? The root of this common problem may be time management. This easy exercise will help you identify the tasks or habits that take time away from your studies and help you develop more healthy homework habits.

Somehow, that assignment due date just slipped right up on us without our noticing.

That is why organizational skills are so important to school performance. Who can afford to score a big fat “0” on a paper just because we got lazy and didn’t pay attention to the due date?

If you have a Yahoo! account or another email system, you can use the free calendar feature to organize your homework. You will be able to enter each assignment as you receive it, make notes, and receive reminders as each due date approaches.

Procrastination is like a little white lie we tell ourselves. We think we’ll feel better if we do something fun, like watch a TV show, instead of studying or reading. But when we give in to the urge we always feel worse in the long run, not better.

If you’re like many students, you sometimes have trouble getting started on a project, because the end result seems so far away and impossible to reach. Sometimes when you start out with an idea and a blank sheet of paper and look into the future, all you see is lots and lots of unfinished research, reading, planning, and work. Next time try starting at the end and looking backward!

Read the text below. For questions (1-12) choose the correct answer (А, В, C or D). Write your answers on the separate answer sheet. An example (0) has been done for you.

The game industry of the modem age is (0) ___ A ___. Nearly every young child and teenager in all developed countries (1) __________ a gaming console of some description. I remember my first ever “game” was one of the classic Game Boy’s, by Nintendo. I treasured that (2) __________________________________ of technology for a long time... until the Game Boy colour (3) __________ at least.

So what is it about the games nowadays that (4) __________ everyone so easily? Is it the sheer size of the games, the graphical value of them, or is it just the fact that they’re (5) __________ to play? I, for one, only ever buy a game which satisfies all of those (6) __________. Imagine having a huge game that’s not fun to play on? Imagine having a fun game, which has (7) __________ embedded from level one onwards? Imagine a game that looks (8) __________ in the show windows, but is (9) __________ awful when you get it back home?

The gaming industry is divided into many sections. You can have (10) __________ from a Role-Playing Game (RPG) to a First-Person Shooter (FPS). (11) __________ of the modern era can vary from being offline to being a massively multiplayer (12) __________ game, which hosts of thousands real-life people around the globe. You’re only young once. Enjoy it while you can.

Read the text below. For questions (1-12) choose the correct answer (А, В, C or D). Write your answers on the separate answer sheet. An example (0) has been done for you.

A well (0) ___ B____ speaker started off his seminar by holding up a $20 bill. In the room of 200, he asked, “Who would like this $20 bill? ” Hands started (1) __________.

He said, “I am going to give this $20 to one of you but first, let me do this.” He proceeded to crumple the bill up. He then asked, “Who (2) __________ wants it? ” Still the hands were up in the air. Well, he replied, “What if I do this? ” And he (3) __________ it on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe. He picked it up, now crumpled and dirty. “Now who still wants it? ” Still the hands went into the (4) __________.

“My friends, you have all (5) __________ a very valuable lesson. No (6) __________ what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in (7) __________. It was still (8) __________ $20.

Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the (9) __________ we make and the circumstances that come our (10) __________. We feel as though we are (11) __________. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value: dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased, you are still priceless to those who love you. The worth of our lives comes not in what we do or who we know, but by WHO WE ARE. You are (12) __________ — Don’t ever forget it.” Count Your Blessings, not your problems.

Read the text below. For questions (1-5) choose the correct answer (А, В, C or D). Write your answer on the separate answer sheet. An example (0) has been done for you.

They are some of the oldest surnames in the land, passed down from generation to generation for hundreds of years. But over the past century or so, they have gone into a catastrophic decline.

Is it migration? Death? Disease? Some socio-demographic calamity that has befallen these families? Perhaps not. A list of the names reveals that their fall in popularity may have a more prosaic cause.

Cock, Daft, Death, Smellie, not to mention Gotobed, Shufflebottom and Jelly: they are all surnames that would have caused their owners considerable embarrassment over the years. A new analysis of British surnames reveals how names with rude overtones have seen the sharpest decline over the past 120 years as their owners have changed them to something more innocuous.

The analysis, which was conducted by Professor Richard Webber, visiting professor of geography at King’s College London, with Experian, the information services company, and Geowise, a provider of geographical analysis software, also reveals fascinating details about patterns of migration.

The fastest-growing surname in Britain is Zhang, which has grown from 123 in 1996 to 5, 804 in 2008. It is followed by four other Chinese names — Wang, Yang, Huang and Lin; only after that do a couple of African names get a look in, Moyo and Dube.

Some things have not changed, however. In 1881 the most popular surnames were, in order, Smith, Jones, Williams, Brown, Taylor, Davies, Wilson, Evans and Thomas; those top nine names are still in the exactly the same order of popularity today.

Where people live has also remained remarkably constant — for hundreds of years. People whose names end in -thorpe, -ing or -by are more likely to have descended from invaders such as the Vikings, Danes or Angles, according to Professor Webber, and are still to be found concentrated on the east coast of Britain. “You are six times more likely to have a neighbour whose name ends in -thorpe or -by if you live in Hull than if you live in Plymouth, ” he said.

0 According to the paragraph, the oldest surnames in Britain have gone into a decline because of ____________.

2 According to the paragraph, which of the following is true of Professor Webber’s research?

3 The author mentions some Chinese and African names in paragraph 5 in order to illustrate that _________.

4 The author mentions top nine British names in paragraph 6 in order to prove that ___________.

5 Among the factors that influence the register of the surnames used in this country the author discusses all of the following except ___________.

Read the text below. For questions (1-6) choose the correct answer (А, В, C or D). Write your answer on the separate answer sheet. An example (0) has been done for you.

In the world of running shoes, the trend has been toward more cushion, more support, more comfort. But, to a small group of running coaches and foot specialists, modern athletic shoes are doing to feet what plush living room sofas and TV remotes have been doing to people: making them lazy, physically underdeveloped and more prone to injuries.

A few years ago when Nike was looking for the next big advance in running shoe design, they asked some of the world’s most respected track and field coaches for advice. A common response must have made their heads spin a little: We don’t need any more shoe, we need less shoe, in fact, maybe we need no shoe. Give us the bare human foot.

Legendary Stanford track coach Vin Lananna said, “I believe that athletes that have been training barefoot run faster and have fewer injuries. It’s just common sense.” Vin regularly put his athletes through their paces barefoot on the grass of the university’s practice golf course. Other coaches agree, and point to the foot/ ankle strength and resistance to injury seen in African and Caribbean runners who have grown up playing and running barefoot much of the time.

So, the research and development team at Nike set out to make a shoe that acted like it wasn’t there; one that trained and worked the foot as nature intended. What’s the point, you may ask? Why not just train in your bare feet? Well, that’s fine if you have a finely groomed golf course to run on, but most athletes train in the street, in the gym, on the track, or out on the trails. This still calls for a shoe that not only offers protection from glass and pebbles, but also from the strike of the foot on hard bruising surfaces.

The first step was to measure exactly what happened to the bare foot when it ran: what the contact areas were between the foot and the ground, how the ankle and toes moved. Once they collected the data, the next step was to create a shoe that could reproduce the natural foot movement. The design team, led by Toby Hatfield and Eric Evar, struggled through innumerable concepts and finally came up with an entirely new kind of shoe. Deep slices in the sole, virtually no ankle support and room for the toes to spread out and move; all head-turning designs. Then it was off to testing again, to make sure the shoe really imitated barefoot running. There was a lot of “back to the drawing board” fine tuning but eventually the Nike Free was created and ready for real-world testing.

Earlier this year, in Germany at the University of Cologne the results of a season-long research study of university track athletes showed enhanced performance and speed by training in the Nike Free shoes. One key point is that Nike Free is a “training shoe, ” and Nike Free and barefoot training are tools to make you stronger.

0 The author compares sneakers with plush sofas and TV remotes to argue that modern athletic shoes may ____________.

2 According to Vin Lananna, which of the following explains the need for a shoe that could reproduce the barefoot movement?

4 The word ‘head-turning’ (designs) in the text is closest in meaning to _________

5 By mentioning “back to the drawing board” fme tuning” the author means that the Nike designers

Read the text below. For questions (1-12) choose the correct answer (А, В, C or D). Write your answers on the separate answer sheet. An example (0) has been done for you.

The (0) ____ A in this book are so believable, you’ll think the author has been crawling around in your mind. Haven’t you read or heard something and thought: “That’s exactly how I feel, but I just couldn’t put it into (1) ________? ” That idea keeps coming to mind as you read. This guy in the book (2) ________ in, but doesn’t (3) ________ fit in. He conforms on the outside — most of the time — but resists conformity on the inside and resents the people he (4) ________ to get along (5) ________.

Everybody’s pushing and he wants to (6) ________ back, but doesn’t openly — most of the time. Society says: “Get in step. Stay in (7) ________.” And he does — most of the time.

“But I’m not like the rest, ” he thinks. Or is he? He can’t (8) ________ out who he is or what he wants to become.

The story may not (9) ________ you at first. Keep going! It’s worth the (10) ________.

You think nobody ever felt the way you do about growing (11) ________? Reading this will (12) ________ your mind.

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