Extract from a novel

Follow-Up

Questions:

1. What are the reasons for the decline in reading? Can you rank them according to their relevance? Which of these reasons do you consider the most significant?

2. What will differ people in the future in the manner of reading?

3. Do you think that more active using multimedia will have an impact on people’s intellect, their way of thinking, perception of information, imagination, and etc.?

4. What does the authour say about the effect of age on reading? Do you agree with this proposition?

5. Does education influence people’s reading habits in the authour’s opinion? Do you share this point of view?

6. How does the authour see the possibilities to halt the decline? What are your ideas? Do you think that this decline in reading can be stopped?

5. Study Unit 26 from the book ‘English Vocabulary in Use – Advanced’ and then do the following exercises:

I. Answer the questions.

1. Do you often visit art galleries and art exhibitions? Why?
2. Which museums have you been to so far? What paintings and other objects of plastic arts are exhibited there?
3. Do you share the opinion that modern artists are often pulling the wool over the public’s eyes? Why?
4. Which types of artist and schools of art are closer to you? Does it matter much for your art perception whether the piece of art is transparent or challenging?
5. People often say that this or that piece of art is highbrow or lowbrow. Do you accept such division? Why?

6. Read three extracts which are all concerned in some way with art. For questions 1-6 choose the answer (A, B, C or D) which you think fits best according to the text.

Positano stands on the steep side of a hill, a disarray of huddled white houses, their tiled roofs washed pale by the suns of a hundred years, but unlike many of these Italian towns perched out of harm’s way on a rocky eminence, it does not offer you at one delightful glance all it has to give. It has quaint streets that zig-zag up the hill, and battered, painted houses in the baroque style, but very late, in which Neapolitan nobleman led, for a season, lives of penurious grandeur. It is indeed almost excessively picturesque and in winter, its two or three modest hotels are crowded with painters who in their different ways acknowledge, by their daily labours, the emotion it has excited in them. Some take infinite pains to place on canvas every window and every tile their peering eyes can discover, and doubtless achieve the satisfaction that rewards honest industry. ‘At all events, it’s sincere,’ they say modestly when they show you their work. Some rugged and dashing, in fine frenzy, attack their canvas with pallet knife charged with a wad of paint, and they say: ‘You see, what I was trying to bring out was my personality.’ They slightly close their eyes and tentatively murmur: ‘I think it’s rather me, don’t you?’ And there are some who give you highly entertaining arrangements of spheres and cubes and utter somberly: ‘That’s how I see it!’ These for the most part are strong silent men who waste no words.

1. Which of the following reflects the writer’s opinion of Positano?

A It is even more beautiful than it initially appears.

B Its full charm is apparent only to the trained eye.

C It does not resemble other quaint towns in Italy

D Its ambience suits people of a particular character.

2. In describing the varied approaches taken to painting Positano, the writer’s tone is predominantly

A admiring B disinterested

C humorous D appreciative

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