Входная контрольная работа по английскому языку для 10 класса
учебно-методический материал по английскому языку (10 класс)

A. 

The early history of Canada is a story of fish and fur. But after World War II, Canada began to develop its own industries, such as producing cars and airoplanes. Today, Canada is the largest producer of nickel. It supplies the world with iron and copper as well as wood, paper, oil, gold and silver. Canada now has moved swiftly with research and development in fibre optics and communications.

B. 

Canada has a reputation for being a mosaic of world cultures. About 40% of Canadians are of British origin. French descendants of the French adventurers live in Quebec. The French language they speak is unique. Words, grammar and even pronunciation still have connections with seventeenth-century French. Canada's third-largest ethnic group is German. Then come Italians, Ukrainians, Dutch, Greeks and Polish. Toronto, the centre for international immigration, is one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world.

C. 

With so much winter and snow, it is not surprising that Canadians are good at winter sports. Ice hockey (simply called hockey) is a national pastime and it is so popular that it is more of a religion than a sport. This is especially true in Quebec, home of the Montreal Canadians, one of the most successful professional sports teams anywhere. Other popular spectator sports include curling and football. The official national summer sport is lacrosse.

D. 

Canada's two official languages are English and French. They are the mother tongues of 60% and 23% of the population respectively. You can notice the both languages on highway signs, maps, tourists' leaflets and all types of packaging. Canadian English contains elements of British English and American English in its vocabulary. The five most widely-spoken non-official languages are Chinese, Punjubi, Spanish, Italian and Arabic.

E. 

The school summer vacations are from the end of June to the early September. On the first Monday of September the Canadians have Labour Day. Originally, it was an occasion to celebrate workers' rights. Nowadays this holiday is, first of all, an opportunity to spend time in the countryside, or have picnics or other outdoor activities with family and friends. For students, the Labour Day is the last chance to have a party before the new academic year.

A. 

For as long as humans have existed there has been a need to keep in touch and to transfer important information between people in different places. Before the invention of writing, oral messages were carried from one person to another between towns. Writing made it much easier to send longer messages; however, it was still difficult to make sure that your message got to the right place.

B. 

It was used by the Roman officials to transfer information throughout the Empire. Staging posts and a system with horses and carriages meant that messages could move quickly, by using many riders instead of one. It was very important for business and military reasons that good communication system existed. However, the Romans were not the first to realize this. The Chinese and Persian empires used systems of horses and riders more than 500 years before the Romans.

C. 

Before the invention of the postage stamps, letters were “franked”. It was marked on the letter that delivery had been paid for. This could have been either written or stamped. A post-mark was also stamped on the letter. Invented in 1660 in England, this was a mark that showed where and when the letter had been posted. It was used to see how long it took to deliver the letter – to make sure the service was reliable.

D. 

It is the humorous term used by e-mail users for the old-fashioned letters-in-envelopes postal system. It means that such letters travel very slowly, which actually is rather unfair. In Britain you can send letters first or second class; the first class ones normally get to their destination, anywhere in the country, the next morning. The postal service is called the Royal mail, and all the British stamps have the head of the Queen.

E. 

They were invented in Great Britain. It was a British man called Rowland Hill who proposed a stamp to be stuck on the letter to identify that postage had been paid. The first stamp was issued in 1840. It was called the Penny Black and the profile of Queen Victoria’s head was depicted there. The stamp cost 1 pence and was darkly coloured. About 65 million Penny Blacks were issued, and nowadays it is not a very rare stamp.