Examination Card №31

I. Reading
The Boat Race between the students of Oxford and Cambridge Universities is an old tradition and an event that attracts attention of millions of viewers all over the world. Its history dates back to 1829 when Cambridge issued a challenge to Oxford. Both teams wore special clothes: Oxford wore blue jerseys and Cambridge put on pink sashes. The winners of the race were both teams but the current score stands at 80 to Cambridge, 75 to Oxford.
Today the 4.5 mile course, which was first used in 1845, stretches from Putney to Mortlake, though the previous course was different. The race is held in March or early April. The captain of the team that lost the race previous year issues a formal challenge. The average time taken to complete the course is about twenty minutes. The fastest time of 16 minutes and 19 seconds was achieved by Cambridge team in 1998.

II. Writing
Dear Mariam,
Listen to your heart and be generous - that will lead you to success. Do not be afraid of changes. Everything in your life happens as it should be. Go straight and do not doubt.
Good luck to you!
Yours,
Karina

III. Speaking
What is the role of music in our lives? I think there's one obvious answer to this question: Music is life itself.
First of all, music has always been a means of expressing people's feelings and emotion. As people are not alike, so different the music is. This has resulted in the styles of music we have today. Folk, techno, Jazz, etc - they all were born in response to people's needs and beliefs. Secondly, music gets the top position in what we call the development of a personality. It forms people's inner world and develops the person's taste. It helps correctly understand occurred events as well. What is more, no matter how different modern music comparing to the classical one, it appeals to our senses and souls.

Nowadays we get flooded with music: singers and songs become popular very quickly due to the special radio programmes and TV channels. There is seldom a week when there is no a song or a music contest. Besides, almost every Saturday and Sunday a great number of people gather at disco parties to dance and relax. Music is the thing that unites them.

As music expresses our most beautiful and sincere feelings, it's difficult to imagine a person who would not love it. The knowledge of classical music helps us to get to know ourselves better and, thus, develop our own vision of life. Music created by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chaikovsky, Grig, Schubert, Rachmaninov - is likely to be understood by everybody despite their status in a society or occupation. This is classical music that has influenced me most.

Modern generation listens to new styles of music such as techno, rock, reggae, hip-hop etc. Our parents used to listen to the Beatles more. Rock music is not as intense as it was when our parents were of our age. Now this genre of music is just to listen to when we feel down. Some others might just listen to it because there's some good beats or guitar riffs. We normally just listen to whatever sounds good. Slow music helps us to relax. This is the best type of songs to do homework with, preferably piano versions of our favourite songs with no lyrics. Dance songs have great beats to dance to and it also sounds good in our teenaged ears. Hip hop and R&B are mainly good combinations of sweet beats and nice verses. I personally like these two because they're good genres to break-dance with and yet are good to listen to when you're not dancing. Rap is not the type of music that I really enjoy listening to. This is the 'rebel' music of this generation's teens, like rock was in the previous one. These songs are basically about all the things kid's shouldn't do... maybe that's why they listen to it; we always tend to want to rebel from what society/parents try to tell us to do.

"Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy," the outstanding German musician Ludwig van Beethoven said. For me personally, this means that music maintains us in comfort in all walks of life.

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