I think this law is one of the best. I’m surprised people didn’t understand that they needed such a law some hundred years ago. Now, when everybody is ill with cancer of lungs, when ozone holes and the hotbed effect appeared, those fools dare to smoke in offices. It’s awful.

Firstly, smoking in offices forces those normal people who don’t smoke to breath tobacco smoke in, as if they smoke, too. This is terrible! Maybe I wouldn’t believe in second-hand smoking and wouldn’t concern so much about it, but scientific researches showed that in most cases – about ten per cent – it’s true. So if one needs no health he/she can smoke, but we need it, and we will not allow them to spoil it with their stupid habit.

But the most terrible is the fact that when we say it isn’t politely to smoke in a room where non-smokers are, they cynically answer that all these scientific researches are committed, that ten per cent isn’t majority, the hotbed effect doesn’t exist at all, and ozone holes (if they really exist) aren’t linked with smoking. I’m indignant: when will our government put an end to this outrage at last?

In a clever book I read that one drop of nicotine can kill a horse. I think I’m stronger than a horse because with them I have already had more than one drop of this poison, and I’m still alive. But I’m afraid, if they don’t stop smoking in my presence I will not be able to live forever.

You want to persuade someone to study your native language. What reasons would you give? Support your answer with specific details. (TOEFL)

Wow, you want to study Russian, I know! What, you don’t? But why? There are many reasons why you should do it.

Do you want to associate with me? If you didn’t, you wouldn’t talk to me now. So, you do. But I will never study your stupid English, so you have to study Russian. What do you say, we are already speaking English? Yes, but I have great troubles, I hardly ever can find a word. And you’re talented, when you know Russian, we will be able to talk without problems at last. Russian is a very easy language, don’t be afraid. They say it is one of the most difficult languages, but English is much harder. Look at me: I’m a fool, and even I know Russian, but I can’t speak English.

When you know Russian, you will be able to enter our government. Wow! You want to be our Prime Minister, don’t you? Don’t refuse, you fool! You’re talented, you’re able to win the fight against our crisis. You know English, you will easily persuade the West to give Russia a lot of money. But if you don’t know Russian, the members of our government will not understand you.

And if you’re not able to correct the situation in Russia – Russian is the best language to scold everything and everybody. Do you want me to tell you some our curses? What, you don’t? You’re still not running to find a school where you will study Russian? What a pity, then I’ll have to study English. But remember, it’s your fault!

Recently Celine Dion, a famous singer, visited a crematorium in Moscow. Celine Dion is famous with a song My heart will go on. She sings it in Titanic movie, when Leonardo DiCaprio and the whole ship are dying. All of us, workers for the crematorium, are great fans of Celine. We always dance to her song when we have discos at our workplace on holidays.

The visit of Ms Dion was a great event for us. She came at 11am, and our spokesman, Mr McGillow, presented flowers to her. There was a curious incident with these flowers. When everything was ready for the meeting, we suddenly remembered that we had forgotten about flowers. But Mr McGillow wasn’t confused. He solved the problem. All of us were free from the work during the star’s visit. So, there were one or two bodies waiting in our refrigerator. There were also roses, brought by a dead person’s relative. And Mr McGillow borrowed them for our guest.

The visit itself was very pleasant. We showed Ms Dion all our facilities. She said, she was surprised and glad to see so advanced equipment in a Russian crematorium.

She sang My heart will go on for us and two new songs, previously unknown, Your leg will go on and His ear will go on. She said: ‘I’m very interested in going on as a whole’.

That was time for her to depart, because we had a lot of work. The relatives and friends of our clients had been waiting for half an hour already. But they weren’t offended by the delay. They were very impressed by Your leg will go on where Celine sings:

Your body is burning, I’m crying,
My tears will destroy the fire
Before your leg will be burned,
And your leg will go on.

1. You must be very punctual and never be more than 2 minutes late. You must never leave even a minute before the end of working hours. No excuses for an illegal leaving, such as sickness, madness, need for an urgent meeting, bad character, sexual harassment or any other disasters will be accepted.

2. You mustn’t tell anybody orally or in written form about anything you see, hear, feel or do during your working hours.

3. You must always be dressed strictly according to the company’s demands. It means you must wear a scarlet tail-coat, a brown hat, dark glasses, a false beard, yellow trousers and large black boots.

4. You mustn’t ever smoke, drink, take drugs, have sex, eat, sleep, play computer games, play games of chance or talk aloud within your working hours.

5. You must never ask anybody when you’ll get your salary, if we are a bit belated with payments. Any talks about salary are strictly forbidden.

6. If you once break any rule of this list, you’ll be punished with lowing salary for a half.

You see the following notice in an international English-language magazine. Write a suitable article in response, based on your personal experience.

*What have you found to be the best way to learn English? *How were you taught at school? *What other help have you received? *Are private lessons good value? *What makes a good teacher? (CAE)

I have got a great experience in studying English. I don’t mean one at school: my school helped me, but not very much. Teachers there were very kind. They believed that a student should be never forced to do anything, but encouraged for doing that. Their main concern was about my nerves, not my English. So they called me ‘dear boy’ and told nothing unpleasant, they believed the latter to be very harmful for education. So it continued until I took Cambridge First Certificate exam and failed. My reading and writing were quite well, but I failed with listening and speaking.

Then one of my friends in England invited me to help me with my English. We thought that living in an English-speaking country and having private lessons with my friend I would upgrade my speaking and understanding.

Studying with my friend, I had all chances to realise what a good tutor should do. He taught me hitting my head, calling me ‘bastard’ and ‘beast’, saying ‘my hour costs two thousand dollars, why must I waste time teaching such a bloody fool like you’ and threatening to use a whip.

According to the results, that was just the best way for teaching me English, because I passed the exam.

Some games actually teach us about life, others are useful only for pleasure. For example, if I play a game with a computer, where my task is to kill everybody whom I see, such a game, certainly, can teach me a lot about life. Killing great scores of people with different kinds of weapon – this experience and skills will be appropriate to everybody.

But such games as chess, or football, or ‘crazy eights’ (a card game of little difference with Russian pyanitsa) don’t help us anyhow in studying life. We use them only for pleasure.

If you have got no computer game, there are lots of other games which can teach you about life. For example Who can spit out longer? It is a very useful and instructive game. I have invented it just now.