Практика по разделу «Аудирование»: варианты 4 — 5

Speaker A. I’m trying to get back on track again with healthy food. I’ve been really bad this couple of months, resulting in horrible weight gain. I still go to the gym three or four times a week, but I eat a lot of unhealthy snacks between meals. I somehow thought it’s my reward for going to the gym, but it certainly made me gain more weight rather than lose it. I figure if I can replace my dinner with fruits, I’ll achieve weight loss easily and in a healthy way. But the problem is, after the gym, when I feel really hungry, the first thing I look for is something savoury.

Speaker B. My name is Jenna, and I’m 17 years old. I’d never had weight issues until last year. I had some problems that made me very depressed, so I ate all the time and watched TV because I didn’t want to leave the house. I know that’s not an excuse for eating so unhealthily, but I was in my own little world, you could say. I’m a very athletic person, and I still have all my muscle, but I’ve just gained weight. I’ve decided to start my diet on Wednesday and work out Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays with one of my friends.

Speaker C. I am utterly frustrated at the moment. My weight is not moving in the right direction, which is not surprising since I just can’t resist food, especially unhealthy food. Like yesterday, I went to the supermarket and bought strawberries and grapes and apples, only to go back 20 minutes later to get a marble cake. I only ate two slices of it, and it was all I had for dinner, but still it makes me angry. Sometimes I feel it has to be either all or nothing. I just know that eating nothing is not the right thing to do and that it won’t help in the long run.

Speaker D. I’m doing really well. I thought that when I came home from school I would balloon up because my mom is an awesome cook, and when I’m home, I work two jobs and am always too tired to exercise. Plus, at school, the gym is free, and at home, it most certainly is not. However, I’ve managed to stay at the same weight, and I’m at my lowest weight on my mom’s scale. I eat around 1,200 to 1,400 calories a day so that my parents don’t suspect anything. But I know they’re impressed with my weight loss. I am too.

Speaker E. My name is Bobby. I’m a sophomore in college and live in the dorm. This is the first time i’ve experienced living on my own. So I can go to any grocery shop and get whatever I want or go out to eat whenever I want. I stopped being active after the swim season was over in my senior year of high school. My weight has steadily increased since then because of my eating and exercise habits alone, I think. So I’ve asked my doctor recently to work out a special combination of diet and sport activities. I hope it’ll help.

Speaker F. I wish I could just kick the pounds away, but alas, no way. I cannot starve myself, and also, I don’t want to. Still, I want to lose weight as fast as possible, of course. I thought I’d try to eat healthy food and exercise a lot, but it’s just so hard to come home and not plunder the fridge. It’s so difficult to change one’s lifestyle. I need some support and encouragement from somebody who understands how difficult it is to solve my problem.

— Sally, have you read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland?
— Yes. My mother read and loved it when she was younger, and I have her copy. I loved it when I was younger, and even more now that I understand the metaphors and the irony.
— Personally, I have a great love for the caterpillar. And who is your favorite character from the book?
— I think it’s the Mad Hatter. His madness and playfulness helps me understand who I am, or at least try to be as a person.
— What is your favorite passage from the book?
— I love when the Queen says, Sometimes I’ve believed in as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
— My favorite passage is Alice’s conversation with herself as she falls down the rabbit hole. It was in that moment that I really fell in love with the quaint little girl named Alice.
— Do you think that the book has any undertones or do you merely love it as it is, a book written in an eccentric and witty style full of twisted adventures?
— I would say there are many witty, eccentric, slightly twisted books out there. Of course, I think there are undertones. There are so many undertones, in fact, that I’m afraid the Alice book may become too outdated and cryptic for today’s children.
— Oh, no! I think of it as a contemporary book that can be enjoyed for years to come. I hope my children will read the same cherished copy I read and my mother read before me.
— By the way, what is your favorite film adaptation of the Alice book?
— I’m not as familiar with the film adaptations as I am with the novel and musical interpretations. I quite like a music video that a friend of mine has done to the song White Rabbit, but I suppose my favorite Alice film is the Disney version.
— Yes, I highly respect Walt Disney and his work, and I think the movie is well done. Though I much prefer the book itself, Disney was not afraid to add a little bit of himself to the film, which I respect him for.

Again, I’m not sure how this works in any other part of the world. At my university, we have a student-elected body of representatives called ‘The Union’. It’s a quasi-political body, elected from the student body and meant to represent the student body as a whole. However, I have doubts about their ability to represent me, and any other mature student at that university.

Let me begin by saying that this year’s president likes to be called ‘gravy’. The behaviour of the union on the whole reflects this level of maturity. This year I ran for the office. I promised someone that I would run. A random meeting with next year’s president and a rant about how ineffectual I thought the union was brought this about, and I must say my mates gave me a lot of support. However, I didn’t make the effort to canvas. I didn’t want the position. Yes, if more mature and experienced people don’t join, what hope is there of this body being more representative.

I should feel worse than I do about my lax efforts, but there is no way in the world I could sit in an office with these people without ranting and raving at them. How can a body of 19 and 20 year olds represent a student body that ranges from 18 to 80?

In the UK, more and more mature students are returning to study every year. If the body that is meant to represent them discusses issues like the ethics of every single product in the union shop, or whether or not allowing al-Qaeda to operate from the university is discrimination or not, they’re simply not represented.

How can I present problems specific to a mature student to someone with little or no life experience themselves? This became evident in a short time and I did not actually take any notice of the elections because these were not elections based on any kind of merit but on how popular someone is or how much attention they can draw to themselves during the elections by dressing up.

When I see taxpayers’ money wasted on these things, and yes it is that money that is used, it makes me see red. The union has a very important job to do and, unfortunately, it does not do it very well at all. The union would perform better as a non-elected body where people with experiences of issues and methods do the work rather than young and inexperienced people who want nothing more than a jolly good time with their mates and something to put in their CV.

I have overheard some people talking about this on occasions. They think that there is something wrong with this situation. In my opinion, there’s definitely something wrong with it. I never thought that this was what university would be about. I’m there for a reason, to learn. I sold my house to finance this degree. It’s a pretty major commitment for me, so of course I’m going to take it seriously.

Speaker A. I went to a public university, Arizona state, because they offered incredible scholarships the cost of staying in state was low compared to any private university. My public state school also made the transition for me incredibly easy, from high school to college. I’d already received dual credit in high school that transferred automatically, so I knew I’d enter ASU as a sophomore. I’m sure those credits would have transferred to a private university, but it was a lot easier just to ride the wave to ASU.

Speaker B. After applying to a mix of public and private colleges, my final decision was to choose between Brown University and the University of Virginia. Both schools have so much to offer prospective students in terms of their history and their excellent academics. I knew I would receive a top-notch education at UVA and even as an out-of-state student, going there would be a much lighter burden on my parents. But ultimately, I decided I wanted to be closer to home and at a smaller school. I also felt more at home, culturally, in the North East.

Speaker C. For my undergraduate degree, I attended UC Santa Barbara, where the Department of Chemical Engineering consistently ranks as one of the top of three programs in the country. As a California resident I paid the in-state tuition rate and received a top-rate education for an exceptional price. I chose to attend a public university because it offered the highest quality education available in my field. It would be absurd to pay more for a lower quality education.

Speaker D. I was looking for a relatively small university that had a number of majors, in case I would like to change my mind, but not a lot of graduation degrees. I also wanted a rural college, where I wouldn’t have too many distractions. It should be at least an hour from home, but not more than four, so I could get back if there was a family emergency. I ultimately chose Clarion in north-western Pennsylvania, and I was really happy with my choice.

Speaker E. I probably went to university for all the wrong reasons. I was the youngest in the family and got tired of being told what to do all the time by everyone else in the family. The family valued education, so leaving home and going out of state was the path of least resistance for my escape route. That is why my university was far from home and there were no relatives nearby. The only thing that was not on my mind was the expectation of a highly paid job due to higher education.

Speaker F. Rice University was significantly cheaper to attend than most other private top universities, and in fact, it still consistently ranks at the very top of best value schools. Rice University also has great all-round academics, which was great for me since I wasn’t sure what I wanted to focus my studies on. I wasn’t interested in state schools nearby because I wanted something smaller. I felt like I would disappear amongst the crowds at every large public university I visited, and the small class size at Rice was a huge bonus.

— Hi, Petra. Where are you going?
— I’m going outside for a breath of fresh air.
— Look, there’s something going on there. Shall we go and see?
— People are taking their pet dogs to the sports stadium. Come on, Greg. Let’s go.
— There’s a man saying something about dogs over the mic.
— That’s a dog competition. I can see the dogs on the running track. Let’s watch them now.
— Which one do you think will win?
— I’m not that good at dogs, but I think the Labrador will come first. It’s very athletic. Look at his owner. He’s very proud of his dog. Oh no, I was wrong. The Doberman crosses the finishing line first. The Labrador comes next and the Pointer third.
— Come Petra, let’s go and cheer the winners. As for me, I’ve always wanted to have a dog.
— Really? But you had one last year, didn’t you?
— Not at all. That was my cousin’s pet. They stayed with us for a week last year, and now my parents let me have my own puppy. Could you please help me in finding one?
— My aunt has got one Alsatian pup and a German Shepherd pup to sell. Would you like to buy one from her?
— It would be great, but I don’t know much about these breeds. Can you tell me about them?
— Well, the German Shepherd and the Alsatian are extremely similar in appearance and colour. Both breeds are easily trained and make wonderful family pets.
— What’s the difference then?
— The German Shepherd is a working dog, whereas the Alsatian is a companion dog. It possesses a very calm, stable temperament and is quite friendly.
— Then I’ll have the Alsatian. Can you take me to your aunt’s house this evening?
— I’m sorry. I have to attend my music class this evening. But my aunt’s house is quite close by.
— In that case, could you please tell me how to get there?
— Oh, sure. Go down this main road and turn left. Her house is the fifth one on the right side, opposite the bakery.
— OK. See you then.

— Today, we are going to talk to Will Smith in his riverfront home in New York City. The one-time teen star who started his career as a rapper, then became an actor and a movie producer, and is now practically a one-man entertainment industry, has a simple philosophy: I can do it. So, Will, you grew up in the 70s in Philadelphia. What was your neighbourhood like?
— It was probably 50% orthodox Jewish. My school was 90% white, but 90% of the kids I played with at home were black, so I got the best of both worlds. I think that is where my comedy developed. In black neighbourhoods, everybody appreciated comedy about real life. In the white community, fantasy was funnier. I started looking for the jokes that were equally hilarious across the board, for totally different reasons.
— Is it true that at one point you were planning to go to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology?
— My mother, who worked for the school board of Philadelphia, had a friend who was the admissions officer at MIT. I had pretty high SAT scores and they needed black kids, so I probably could have gotten in, but had no intention of going to college.
— Because you got a record deal?
— My first record came out while I was a senior in high school, which is dangerous. Life is too good. I told my parents I wanted to rap. They said, rap? My mother thought college was the only way. My father could kind of see doing something differently. We agreed that I would take a year making music, and if it did not work out, I would go to college. That year, we won the first Grammy given to a rap artist.
— Have you ever thought about going back to college?
— The things that have been most valuable to me, I did not learn in school. Traditional education is based on facts and figures and passing tests, not on a comprehension of the material and its application to your life. Jada and I homeschool our children, because the date of the Boston Tea Party does not matter.
— But there are some basics in education that need to be taught.
— Of course there are. Reading, writing and arithmetic, because those are the languages of our country.
— When you say you homeschool, do you mean you actually teach them?
— No, we have hired teachers who teach what we feel is important.
— So, you don’t see any reason to go back to a formal education yourself.
— I know how to learn anything I want to learn. I absolutely know that I could learn how to fly the space shuttle because someone else knows how to fly it and they put it in a book. Give me the book and I do not need somebody to stand up in front of the class.
— Your son Jaden plays your son in the movie. How did that come about?
— I was reading the script one night and he said, I can do that daddy. He’d done a couple of sitcom appearances but had no formal theatrical training other than good genes.
— Does he want to do more acting?
— Yeah, he says he wants to make comedy though.
— Do you worry about the problems many child actors face?
— Actually, I do not believe in getting trapped in a pattern where you recognise the pattern. The child actor patterns are obvious. I’m kind of a student of the patterns of the universe. When my partner, James Lesiter, and I came to Hollywood, I said, I want to be the biggest movie star in the world. We observed that of the top ten movies of all time, ten were special effects or animation, nine were special effects or animation with creatures, eight were special effects or animation with creatures and a love story, so we made Independence Day. When you see the patterns, you just try to put yourself in a position to get lucky, so Jaden has great chances to succeed in this profession.
— How did you get into the pattern of looking at patterns?