Read the following extract on divorce and explain the words marked in bold print

Suddenly, it’s as if saying goodbuy to a spouse is no longer the dismal climax to protracted misery that it once was. Divorce in the 21^st century appears a simple lifestyle choice, the result of two people drifting apart: now the ex-partners can move on and rebuild their lives. Today, those people who once tied the knot because living together was frowned upon are cohabiting. However, the divorce rate is still high; there is phenomenally high rate of marital breakdown – 4 out of 10. So, who divorces and why? What might that tell us about marriages that last? Academics discovered that the deprived are more divorce-prone, as are those who have cohabited more than once before marriage, those who have embarked on relationships at a young age, those who have experienced parental divorce and those who have “low emotional well-being”. In short, an awful lot of us are vulnerable. It’s this “happy ever after” that we can’t quite seem to get right.

6) There are two stories below, one about marriage, and one about divorce. Start in the middle column, which both stories have in common. Make sure you know the vocabulary marked in bold print. Then read and render each story.

engagement, we   we, get married.   have a civil marriage in a registry office or marry in churchand have a white wedding.We   where to have the reception and where to go on our honeymoon. he had a stag party organized by his best man while I had a hen party with some girlfriends.     church thebride, thegroom mybridesmaid. Thevicar (priest) theservice “Gwendoline Mary, do you take this man, Richard Percy, in holy matrimony, to….?   gave me away, “I’ma married woman.”

For the six months of our seemed blissfully happy, so decided to go ahead and There were lots of decisions to make: whether to   finally decided on the latter. After that, it was mainly a question (I thought) of     The night before   When we arrived at the   we made a strange trio, I must say: me as   Richard as   and my little sister as     had a lot to say and   took ages.     My father   and cried. It seemed very strange for a few days to say,     But I never regretted it Well,…

trial separation,I   I, get a divorce.   sue on the grounds of incompatibility or his crueltyor his adultery. I   how much alimony he should pay and how much maintenance for the children.   I spent hours recalling all our anniversariesand going through correspondence with my solicitor. divorce court, theplaintiff, the respondent, theco-respondent. The judge (magistrate) the case “I hereby dissolve”– or did he say “annul”? – this marriage…. And award a decree nisito…”   was in court with me,   “I’m not a divorcee, but I will be in six weeks’ time When I get a decree absolute.

1) Read the following texts and give English equivalents to the following. Use them in the appropriate context: разводиться, предсказывать, частота сердечных сокращений, язык тела, мимика, закатывать глаза, складывать, суммировать, счет (в игре), выживание, точный.

Divorce: A Fifty-Fifty Chance?

Divorce is a growing problem in the United States and many other developed countries. Although thousands and thousands of happy couples get married every year, more than 50 percent of them get divorced. Two researchers at the University of Washington studied marriage and divorce. They learned a lot from their research. With this information, they created a mathematical formula that predicts divorce. Mathematician James Murray and psychologist John Gottman agree that their predictions are correct almost all of the time.

How do they do it?

A husband and wife talk about a difficult subject for 15 minutes. The researchers videotape them. In addition, they record physical information such as heart rate. Then the researchers listen to the conversation. They watch the body language and look at the facial reactions. After that, they give the couple positive and negative points.

For example, the couple might talk about mothers-in-law. If the husband says, "Your mother is a lot of trouble," the couple gets two negative points. If the wife rolls her eyes, they get two more negative points. However, if the husband says, "Your mother is a lot of trouble, but sometimes she's funny," then the couple gets one positive point. If he smiles, they get another one.

In the end, the researchers add up the points. A good marriage has five more positive points than negative points. However, the researchers say that a bad score is not necessarily the end of a marriage. Marriages with bad scores can survive. They hope that couples will use the information from the study to learn to communicate. However, nor everyone believes that mathematics can stop divorce. A professor of psychology at New York University says that it is "absolutely impossible" to use mathematics to help a marriage. The scientists disagree. They have studied this problem for 16 years. In that time, they have studied more than 700 couples. 1 heir predictions are 94 percent accurate. It seems necessary for the survival of marriage that we listen to them.

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