My favourite subject was English. I liked to learn new words, to dramatise texts and dialogues. I liked it when we discussed someth
ing interesting to us, when we were taught to debate, when we had small-group discussions or set up a role-play. But I wasn't very good at chemistry. I always failed to learn formulas and terms properly. Maybe our chemistry teacher was too serious, too ac
ademic. She was not imaginative enough and her lessons were a little bit dull. There was not enough excitement for us to get interested in the subject.
I liked my class. I always felt at home there. Everybody was so friendly and easy to get along with. I was on good terms with my classmates and we often spent our free time together.

I've just left school and I would like to tell you a few words about it. My school is not very big. It is quite a modern three-storeyed building. More than four nundred pu
pils study there. It is a specialised school famous for its high-quality education and strict discipline.

My Day (мой обычны
й день)


I want to tell you about my daily routine. On working days I usually get up at half past 7 in the morning and go to the bathroom. I wash myself, brush my teeth and comb my hair. While I am in the bathroom my mother makes breakfast for
me and my brother. I usually have porridge, omelet or pancakes and a sandwich with cacao for breakfast. At half past 8 I leave home and go to school. It is not far from my house, but I don't like to be late for my classes, thatТ
s why I leave home earlier. On my way to school I often meet my classmates and friends. We talk and discuss things.
I usually have six lessons at school, sometimes seven, but never eight or nine. The first lesson starts at 9 oТ clock in the morning. At school we have a lot of sub
jects: Math, Russian, Literature, Biology, Geography, English, Computing, Physical Education and others. We learn a lot of interesting and useful things at school. At 12 oТ
clock we usually have lunch at school.

After school I go back home. I have my dinner at 3 oТ
clock in the afternoon. After dinner I go for a walk with my friends. In winter we play hockey or snowballs, in spring and autumn we usually play football in our yard. We have a football field nearby and spend lots of time there.

After wal
king I come back home and start doing my homework. When I have problems with it, I ask my mother or my brother for help. My father comes back from work very late, so I ask him for help just at the week-ends. At 7 oТ
clock in the evening my family has supper. After supper I like to play computer games or to watch some film.
I also have a habit of reading a bit before going to bed. So I lie down in the bed at half past 9 in the evening and read up to 10 oТ clock. Then I fall asleep.

ThatТ s my usual day.


My Hobbies and Pastime ( Мое
хобби и
времяпровождение )

Hobby is what people really like to do and do in their free time. People have very different hobbies that correspond to their interests.
One of the most popular hobbies is collecting different things. Some people collect badges and stamps, some people collect bottles or flowers. There are people who collect paintings or cars.

I collected pocket flashlights when I was at primary school. I have a collection of about fifteen flashlights. I remembe
r I used to hang them on the walls and to put on the bookshelves in the evening. I switched on all of them at the same time and was very excited because of this unusual light.
Making things with hands is another type of hobbies. This includes drawing,
knitting, painting, handicraft and others. For example, my granny is fond of knitting. All over the year she knits socks and scarves for everybody in our family. Playing computer games has become a very popular hobby nowadays. Lots of my friends are addic
ted to their computers. My parents donТ t allow me to play a lot, so I canТ t say that this is my hobby.
My major hobby is volleyball. I attend sport school 3 times a week. We have 2 and half hours of training. I usually get very tired after it but this sport game gives a great pleasure to me.


I also like listening to music. I have a big collection of CDs with different kinds of music. My favourite genres of music are rock and reggae. I also have some favourite singers and I collect information about them.


Now I want to talk about ways of spending free time. I think that hobbies and pastime are connected with each other because you do whatever you like in your free time. As for me I go to sport school during the week so at the week-ends I mostly go ou
t with my friends. We like to go to park. Sometimes we roller-skate there, sometimes just walk and eat some ice-cream. I think that itТ s very good just to walk and listen to birds singing. I like to be close to nature.

In the evenings I like to read. I like to spend a couple of hours with a new interesting book.


My Favourite Holidays and Celebrations
( Мои любимые
праздники )


I want to tell you about my favourite holidays. I have quite a lot of them. I usually celebrate holidays with my relatives and friends. We gather together, lay up the table full of food, dance and play different games.

New Ye
ar is my favourite holiday since early childhood. My brother and I usually decorate a New Year tree with colourful glass balls and toys. I also like cooking New Year supper. I always help my mother to decorate New Year dishes. At night we have a real feas
t. We eat what we have cooked and watch TV. After clock strikes midnight, New Year comes. We drink champagne and give each other presents.
My other favourite celebration is my birthday which is in May. On this day I am in the centre of attention. My pare
nts and friends give me presents. If the weather is nasty I have a birthday party at home. If the weather is fine I invite my friends to have picnic in the forest. I invite close friends and we have fun together.

I also like St.Valentirie's Day, which i
s a new holiday in Russia. It is celebrated on the 14-th of February. I like this holiday because it gives a lot of fun. We have Love mail at school. A box is placed on the ground floor of the building and anybody can put into it a card with the name of t
he person it is addressed to and the number of the form. In the middle of the day the mail is delivered and it is nice to get a card from a person you don't know.
I really enjoy holidays and celebrations!





My Favourite Writer
( Мой любимый
писатель )



I believe that books are one of the greatest wonders in the world. Books are the way to live hundreds of lives and to have thousands of adventures being at home. The work of my fantasy and imagination while reading is what makes me happy. I started read
ing myself at 5 years old. But first books that impressed me deeply were read to me by my mother. These are fairy tales of Christian Andersen and forest short stories of Vitalij Bianki.
If somebody asks me about my favourite writer I wonТ t probably fin
d the answer. Every book that I read becomes the best one for me for the time of reading. Usually I try to read the books of one author one by one. In such a way I can understand his thoughts, images, ideas and the writing manner better.

At the moment I
become acquainted with the works of John Fowles. John Fowles is an English novelist and essayist, master of layered story-telling, illusionism, and purposefully ambiguous endings. His first novel, and the first that I read, “The Collector”
, is a study of a clerk who is psychologically impelled to kidnap and murder. “The French LieutenantТ s Woman” is a “Victorian”
novel that has three endings. It reflects contemporary self-consciousness about nineteenth-century England and the form of the novel itself. I really enjoyed the works of John Fowles and for the time being I am going to start his book “The Magus”.



My Biography ( Моя
биография )

The topic that is given to me is «My biography»
. It sounds too meaningful. It means something very important. I am sorry to say that there is little to speak about my short past life. I am too young to have my own family, I am not married
yet. My name is Sergey. My last name is Petrov. The patronymic is Vadimovich. So my full name is Sergey Vadimovich Petrov. I am seventeen years old. I was born on the twelfth of June. I am a former pupil. I left school a month ago. I did not attend any n
u
rsery or kindergarten. I began to go to school at the age of six. It was eleven years ago. I had been studying at the same school for eleven years running without changing it. We had many subjects: history, English, biology and many others. I liked to stu
dy at school and my impressions of it are rather pleasant. My favorite subjects are English and informatics. On the English lessons we read and translate the text and learn new words. On the informatics lessons we write the pro¬
grams. That is why I choose English examination.


My School ( Учебный
день )


At the age of 6 or 7 ail boys and girls go to school. I am a schoolboy as well. My school number is 121. Our school is large, airy and light. It is neither old nor new. There is a large schoolyard and a stadium. We sometimes have physical train¬
ing lessons here. There are 3 floors in the school. There is a workshop on the ground floor. It is big and there are all kinds of iron-processing tools and machines here. There is also a woodwork room where we learn to make different things of wood.
Another room is for girls to learn housekeeping and craft-work. It is also on the ground floor. There is a dining room you can enter from the foyer. It is next to the woodwork room. Here pupils and teachers have their breakfast and dinner. The dining room

is very clean and has beautifully designed interior. There are many nice pictures on the walls and some of them are drawn by the most gifted schoolchildren. There is also a gymnasium near the dining room and the woodwork room. All pupils like to attend it

because at our physical training lessons we usually play exciting sport games and have a lot of fun. There is a library on the first floor of the school building. There are a lot of old and new books there. But unfortunately there is no reading room there
.
The library regulations are quite strict and one cannot take more than two books at a time and keep them for more than two weeks period. There are many classrooms in the school. The English classrooms are supplied with an audio systems controlled from th
e
teacher's desk and there are headphones provided connecting the cassette decks with the pupils' desks. There is a lot of research laboratory equipment both in the Physics and Chemistry classrooms. The Geography and History classrooms have a lot of maps a
n
d books. Every classroom has a flower-stand or some pots with beautiful home plants or flowers. The teacher's desk is usually between the pupils' ones and the blackboard. There are around twenty desks in each classroom. Some classrooms have TV sets that a
r
e used sometimes at the lessons. There is a school conference hall on the third floor where meetings, conferences and school dancing parties take place. There are also holidays celebrated and concerts and competitions of various kinds are held except the
sports events, which take place in gymnasium or in the open. School theatre once in two or three months performs its plays here. The most remarkable event of the school life Ч
the Last Bell is also celebrated here. The pupils of the first and eleventh forms
prepare themselves for this day with great enthusiasm. The teacher's room is on the second floor. There are tables and armchairs for teachers to take a short rest or to do some preparations. There is a TV set with video player here and there are two comp
u
ters connected with the director's and head teacher's ones. There Is also a telephone and a fax machine. The teachers' room is quite comfortable and cozy and some teachers like to spend their time there. I like my school and sometimes I think that I would
like to be a teacher.


My Day Off ( Выходной
день )

On weekdays I usually go to school, but on my days off I rest. I hate getting up early in the morning, and on my week¬
ends I can afford to get up a bit later than usual, because I don't have to hurry anywhere. As a rule at our leisure tim
e we go in for sports, read the books, go to the cinema, theatre, park, museum or exhibition. Sometimes we go to the zoo or circus and enjoy ourselves watching animals. We try to spend most of the time out-of-doors. Some people prefer to go to the country

to see their relatives and friends. In winter we like to go to the forest to ski or to the skating-rink to skate. After having such a pleasant rest in the open air, you are happy to come home and have a rest sitting near the TV set and watching an interes
t
ing TV programs. In summer and spring picnics are popular with schoolchildren and students. Children are fond of picnics chiefly because they have an excellent opportunity to admire the beauty of nature, to run and play games, to have a bite without obser
ving table manners. But the most exciting event is making a fire. They are fond of collecting wood and sitting round the fire. And again, children like to return home after having a picnic. Now they think that «There is no place like home»
, as the saying go
es. As for me, my days off are normally like this. I get-up at 9 o'clock, do my morning exercises, wash my face and hands and brush my teeth. After having breakfast I relax a little: listen to a lovely stereo music and try to forget about all my problems.

Then I can visit my friends and have a chat with them about our school life. Sometimes my friends and I go to the museum or art exhibition. As a rule, my activities on weekends depend on my plans, but in any case I manage to do a lot of things and have a
real rest. I always try to do my best to have a good time. But unfortunately time flies very quickly on weekends, and the next Monday morning comes, and I am looking forward to my next days off.



Hobbies ( Увлечения
)

Hobbies differ like tastes. If you have chosen a hobby according to your character and taste Ч
you are lucky because your life becomes more interesting. Hobbies are divided into four large classes: doing things, making things, collecting things, and learning things. The most popular of all hob
by groups is doing things. It includes a wide variety of activities, everything from gardening to traveling and from chess to volleyball. Gardening is one of the oldest man's hobbies. It is well-known fact that the English are very found of gardening and
g
rowing flowers, especially roses. Both grown-ups and children are found of playing different computer games. This is a relatively new hobby but it is becoming more and more popular. Making things includes drawing, making sculptures, designing costumes, ha
n
dicrafts and others. Two of the most famous hobby painters were President Eisenhower and Sir Winston Churchill. Some hobbyists write music or play musical instruments. Ex-president Bill Clinton, for example, plays on the saxophone. Almost everyone collect
s
something at some period in his life: stamps, coins, matchboxes, books, records, postcards, toys, watches and other things. Some collection have not real value. Others become so large and so valuable that they are housed in museums and art galleries. Man
y
world famous collections started in a small way with one or two items. People with a good deal of money often collect paintings, rare books and other art objects. Often such private collections are given to museums, libraries and public galleries so that

others might take pleasure in seeing them. No matter what kind of hobby a person has, he always has the opportunity of learning from it. By reading about the things he is interested in, he is adding to what he knows. Learning things can be the most exciti
ng aspect of a hobby. So I think that everyone should have a hobby, it is like the target of your life.


My Household Chores ( Помошь
по дому )


Doing household chores is a necessary part of our life. People all over the world try to work hard. They usually have a lot of duties. I have a lot of duties, too. My parents are often tired and I must take care of them. Everybody is hap
py when the home is always bright and clean. Day after day I can have fun when I do my household chores. I sweep the floor, tidy my room, clean the shoes, dust the furniture, make food myself and do every kind of work. It's not easy to do every kind of wo
r
k at home, but I can learn to do everything myself. When I do my household chores well, everybody in the family is happy. If I have a holiday party at home, I can help my mother and grandmother a lot. How happy mother is to see everything bright! It's a n
i
ce present for my parents to tidy the house! It's wonderful to make people happy! If I have time, my mother asks me to go to the shop. I go there and buy bread, eggs and sugar. Very often I go to the market with my mother. We buy some vegetables and fruit
s
. Then I help my mother to carry them. My mother cooks well; sometimes I help her when she makes cakes. She usually makes them before holidays and on my birthday. We have got a country house. There is a big garden with many trees, bushes and flowers in it
.
There is a lot of work in our garden and I help my parents to do it. We must do our household chores, because if we hadn't done it our flat would look like a trash can. I usually clean my flat on Friday. First of all I clean with duster table, piano, som
e boxes, TV, lamp and many other things. At second I clean with vacuum cleaner carpet in my room, then I clean carpet in mother's and father's room. I usually wash the floor in all rooms. Then I wash bath-shell with «Pemolux»
. Later I wash stove with «Fairy»
. Every day I must feed my cat. It is very big and fat. I cook a fish soup I to it. After supper I always wash plates and dishes. Sometimes I cook myself, but my cookies up aren't so nice as mother's. I think I make an impact in tiding our place. It is ne
cessary to help the parents. Try to make people happy and you will be happy yourself!


My Room

We live in a new flat in one of the residential areas of our city. It is a three-room flat of a typical block of flats with a lift and rubbish chute. Our fla
t is on the fifth floor. As you enter our flat, you find yourself in a small entrancehall, and from there you can go to the rooms: the living room, my parent's bedroom and my room. I use my room as a study and a bedroom. My room is a very comfortable one.

It has its advantages, though it is the smallest room in our flat. The only window in my room faces the green park, which is situated near our house. It is so nice to look out of the window in a bright sunny day! The view is really wonderful. The walls of

my room are papered in a design of gray and silver strips and the curtains on the window match the wallpaper perfectly. The built-in furniture doesn't take much space in it. There is a writing table with a reading-lamp on it. I always keep there my notes,

textbooks, pens and pencils, booklets, posters, pads, newspapers, magazines and other necessary for me things. There is a built-in wardrobe in the right-hand corner of the room with coat hangers to hang clothes on. Opposite the wardrobe there is a bookcas
e
full of books, journals and newspapers. Near the writing-table there is a standard lamp with a pink silk shade. On the little table there is a stereo cassette recorder. You see, I am fond of music and often enjoy listening to the lovely melody. My divan-
b
ed stands near the standard lamp. There are two water-colors and my portrait on the wall above the divan-bed. The floor in my room is covered with a thick carpet. Besides, I grow a lot of flowers in my room. You can see them everywhere: on the windowsill,
on the bookcase, on the little table, on the walls. I take care of the flowers and water them regularly. To cut the long story short, I should admit that my room is very attractive and I like it very much.

My Best Friend

Speaking about my best friend I'd like to mention a famous proverb said by Robert Stevenson that «No man is useless while he has a friend»
. And I entirely agree with it. To be a real friend means to be able to share all happiness and hardships, be able to help and understand. But someti
mes it is hard to find the one who is modest, faithful, reliable, and sincere at the same time. As for me I have a few true friends and I'd like to tell about one of them. His name is Vasya, he is fifteen years old and he is my classmate. I like the way h
e
looks. The first thing you notice when you see him is his blue clever eyes. He has curly hair combed back. I think he is rather attractive both in his appearance and his character. In my opinion Vasya is a determined kind of person, who possesses an abil
i
ty for quick-decision making. Judging by his deeds I'm sure that he is resolute and firm, but sometimes too pedantic. He isn't an easygoing kind of person: it seems that he is in the habit of thinking of every word he says. His friends think that because
o
f his ambitions it seems that Vasya is too conceited. Nevertheless he is always in the mood of joking. Joking he never tries to insult people: his jokes are always pertinent. Vasya is just that kind of person to spend good time with: he is well-read, good

educated, his interests are wide and various. In my opinion we have much in common, so it's easy for us to find what to talk about. We both listen to the same music, read adventure books and are fond of football. We got acquainted nine years ago and knowi
ng features and drawbacks of all each other we still remain close friends.


My Girlfriend ( Моя
подруга )


IТ
m not a very sociable person. To my mind, it's not obliged for people to have a lot of friends in order to be happy. It's enough, as I think, to have one or two friends who are able to understand you and to support you in hard situations
. So, there are few people whom I can call friends. We have much in common and we enjoy communicating with each other. One of my friends is Natalie. She is eighteen. I can say that she is beautiful and smart girl. She left school 2 years ago and now she i
s
a second year student of the University. Natalie wants to be a journalist. She studies well because she is greatly interested in her future profession. Natalie is a hardworking girl too. I admire this feature of her character because I don't have it. Nat
a
lie does not have much free time but if she has, she likes to spend it in a good company, consisting of her school friends. When we gather together we like to listen to music, both classical and modem one, to watch new films and discuss them. I enjoy talk
i
ng to her a lot because she knows many interesting facts about famous people, history. Her favorite subjects at school were history and literature. She is fond of reading. Books have become part of her life. We have been being friends for a long time. We
t
rust each other so much that we have some personal secrets, which are not revealed to the others. I can tell her about my troubles and I am sure that Natalie would help me and give me a piece of good advice. Natalie is an intelligent person. She has a dee
p and genuine interest in people, open-mindedness and inquiring mind. It is necessary for her as a journalist. I'm happy to have such a good friend as Natalie.


My Future Career ( Моя
будущая професс
ия )

I'm sure that choosing a career isn't an easy matter. Nowadays there is a great variety of profes¬
sions such as a doctor, an economist, a lawyer and it is hard to choose a one which suits your interests and abilities. As for me I
have made up my mind to become a lawyer. I think that justice is the most important in the modern world, and besides I'm fond of arguing and discussing different topics. But I'm still hesitating whether it is good to choose a ca¬
reer while Pm at school. On
one hand it gives me an opportunity to find the necessary course of study and pay more attention to the subjects which will be of great value for me in future. More than that I can attend optional courses in order to get profound knowledge in sciences an
d
humanities. At school I have wonderful possibilities to develop the personal qualities such as understanding, the ability to listen to, to help people and persistence in achieving the aim. Pm sure such qualities will help me to succeed as a lawyer. On th
e
other hand choosing a career at school may force me to a career path before I realize my real interests and abilities. As for my interests they change every year but I hope my desire to become a lawyer will not change in future. As for me choosing a care
e
r isn't only a matter of future prestige and wealth. In my opinion job must be inte-resting and socially important. The profession of lawyer gives me plenty of opportunities to help people in trouble. When I have been choosing a career I consulted nobody,

but as for my parents they appreciate my wish to become a lawyer. I hope their support and encouragement will help me to make the final decision. I understand, my wish isn't enough to become a good lawyer. I must be well-educated and broad-minded. And Eng
l
ish language will be of great importance for me in it. With the help of English language I can get acquainted with the works of other foreign writers and their works on philosophy and logic. Besides it gives me a unique chance to communicate with my futur
e foreign colleagues and probably exchange experience. So I think that it is very important for me to think about the future I even now because according to a famous saying «If you don't think about your future you can't have one».


Introducing Yourself ( Моя
визитная карточ
ка )


Let me introduce myself. My name is Anne. My surname is Petrova. I am seventeen years old. My birthday is September 11. I 1ive in Saint Petersburg with my family. Our family is quite big: there are five of us Ч father, mother, bro
ther, sister and me. We are a very united family.

I am a pupil in the eleventh form of a secondary school. I finish school this year. I want to enter the university. That is why I have to study twice as hard as an ordinary pupil does. I do not only do m
y best at school; I also attend a preparatory course at the university.
As you can understand, I'm rather a busy person. But when I have some free time in the evening, I like to read a good book. My favourite Russian writer is Anton Chekhov. As I'm stu
dying English, I read a lot of books by English authors. I try to read them in English, but this is not always easy. When there is a good film on TV, I watch it with all my family. I also like music, classical as well as modern. I have a tape-recorder and
I like to listen to some tapes when I am doing my homework, but my parents think it is bad for my work.
I have more free time during weekends. I like to spend this time with my family. Sometimes we all go to the cinema, or to some concert. In winter we go skiing or just walk in the country.


As I've said before, I plan to enter the university next year. I am quite good at English, and I am interested in the culture of Great Britain, USA and other English-speaking countries, so I want to go on with Engl
ish at the University. I do not know exactly what I will do after graduating from the university, but I'm sure I'll find a good Job as an interpreter or a teacher or something like that, because the English language is very popular now and everybody needs
it.

Curriculum Vitae ( Резюме
)

NAME: Anna Petrova.
DATE OF BIRTH: 11 September 1979.

ADDRESS: Pushkinskaya street, 40/12. TELEPHONE NUMBER: 321-18-44.
MARITAL STATUS: single.

HEALTH: excellent.
EDUCATION: 1986-1996
Ч secondary school № 38 (specialization in ...); 1996 Ч secretarial courses (typing, computer literl асу
, business correspondence). Now I am a student at the Foreign Languages Department at the University.
WORKING EXPERIENCE: 1995-1996 Ч
private teacher (English); 1996-1997 Ч ABC company, secretary.
OTHER QUALIFICATIONS: communicative English; Word, Excel for Windows-95.

HOBBIES: knitting, skiing.

REFERENCES:
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