Examination Card № 7

І. Reading

Read the text and choose the best answer (a–d) to complete the sentences (1–5).

It was the strangest of all races. Two teams of five men each – one British, the other Norwegian – set out at the beginning of the 1911 Antarctic summer, both bent on becoming the first explorers to reach the South Pole. The British team was led by 43­year­old Robert Falcon Scott, the Norwegian team was led by by 39­year­old Roald Amundsen. Each man had already made expeditions to the Antarctic region.

Yet because the two expeditions had chosen to build their coastal base camps 600 miles apart, at either edge of the vast Ross Ice Shelf, their paths would never overlap, and the two teams would never meet each other. There was no way to know who was leading the race.

Amundsen’s team set out on October 18. Scott’s party did not depart from Cape Evans until November 1. The two parties had about the same distance to cover (nearly 800 miles in a straight line) to get to the South Pole. Yet their traveling styles were completely different, and those differences would spell victory or defeat. Amundsen used dogs to haul his sleds, while the men were skiing; when they were close to exhaustion, they could kill and eat the dogs. Scott experimented in vain with ponies and motorized tractors to pull his sleds, but ended up heading for the Pole with his men in harnesses, pulling their heavy sleds themselves.

Taken from “100th Anniversary of Roald Amundsen Reaching South Pole–How the Grueling Race Was Won” by David Roberts, Beyond the Edge: National Geographic Adventure Blog, 2011.

1. Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott competed to be the first person to:

A visit Antarctica. C reach the North Pole.

B win a sledding race. D reach the South Pole.

2. How old was Roald Amundsen when he started the race?

A 43 B 39 C 18 D 49

3. Why was there no way for the men to know who was winning the race?

A One team was travelling much faster than the other team.

B One team never started the race.

C The teams’ paths never overlapped.

D The weather conditions made it too difficult to see.

4. “In vain” means:

A unsuccessfully C for fun B successfully D carefully

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