Variant 16

1. Read the text and mark the following statements «True» or «False».

1 Britain is considered to be the leader of Europe when it comes to learning foreign languages. FALSE
2 Less than half of other European countries can speak another foreign language. FALSE
3 More than half of the British population know two foreign languages. FALSE
4 Lots of British people think that learning foreign languages is very difficult. TRUE
5 Not ail other European countries were as good at languages as Sweden, Denmark and Holland. TRUE
6 Two per cent of the people in Luxembourg speak a foreign language. FALSE
7 Besides England, Portugal speaks the lowest number of foreign languages. TRUE
8 The BTC experiment concluded that less than 18% of Britons spoke Spanish or German. FALSE
9 Ninety per cent of the hotel staff could not answer questions in German. TRUE
10 The researchers from the BTC asked the hotel workers about learning foreign languages. FALSE

2. Complete the text with the correct words from the box.

Some of the great (1) paintings which disappeared during World War II had been concealed in the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg.

There are literally hundreds of paintings, 74 of which are masterpieces. Among the (2) artists represented are Degas, Van Gogh, Cezanne and Picasso.

The value of these works of (3) art is enormous. Although no official amount has been given, (4) experts believe they are worth about £200 million. (5) however, valuing paintings-such as these is extremely difficult because the market changes so much from year to year.

It is the (6) impressionist works which are of greatest value, the most outstanding being Degas’ «Place de la Concorde». This work is particularly special because of the balance between the (7) scenery in the background and the figures in the foreground. There are also excellent examples of the work of Gauguin, one of which had never been seen in (8) public before.

However, not all the paintings are the masterpieces the Russians first thought they were. Several of the works have been discovered to be (9) fakes. One Toulouse-Lautrec was almost put into an exhibition at the Hermitage before an expert worked out that it was an excellent, but (10) valueless copy.